“Who, I, a sweetheart? You are joking, mother?”
“But that woman, that actress.”
“Who, Gemma? Oh, what a saint you are, my mother! We don’t call those sweethearts. They are a slight distraction; a home where there is a different woman who greets you with constant good humour, who lets you play or joke or sleep as you please; who asks you nothing, who understands nothing, but who does not ask to be understood.”
“How awful, Marco!”
“O Saint Arduina! O sainted mother mine!”
“Your wife knows of this relation: they have told her of it as being a great scandal.”
“You too; and are you scandalised?”
“I? very much.”
“If you like I will leave Gemma, mother dear.”
“You don’t love her, it is true?”