“No, Alberto. You must know that the soil is unfavourable to them. Besides, we are too far inland; they thrive well along the coast. Have you many at Sorrento?”
“Oh, a good many; and, sai, they yield six per cent. free of income-tax, while other produce only yields two and a half.”
Lucia broke in with her faint, dragging intonation:
“Alberto, why don’t we build a villa at Sorrento?”
“Eh! It wouldn’t be a bad plan. I have thought of it sometimes myself; but building runs away with time and money....”
“Not a palace; no big useless edifice. What would be the good of it? But a microscopic villa, a nest for us two, with three or four rooms flooded with sun; a conservatory, and an underground kitchen that would not destroy the poetry of the house; no dining-room, but a porch hung with jasmin and passion-flowers; an aviary, where singing-birds would pipe and birds of Paradise hop from branch to branch—and go together, we two alone, into that fragrant land, washed by that divine sea, and stay there together, apart from the world: thou restored to health, I dedicating myself to thee....”
She said all this to Alberto, looking the while at Andrea, who was rather embarrassed by such a demonstration of conjugal affection. He pretended to be immersed in the study of onions, but not one of the slow, chiselled, seductive words escaped him.
“You are right; it would be delightful, Lucia. We will think about it when we get back to Naples. Oh! we really must build this nest. But where do you find these strange notions that would never occur to me? Who suggests them to you?”
“The heart, Alberto. Shall we sit down?”
“By no means; I am not a bit tired. I am flourishing—almost inclined for a ride. You are tired, perhaps?”