“Ah!” exclaimed the chorus, alternately blushing and turning pale.
“On the lips, of course?” asked Casacalenda, biting her own to make them redder.
“Yes.”
The girls were silent, absorbed in thought. Minichini always unsettled the work-class with her tales: she would tell the simplest thing with a certain malicious reticence and brusque frankness, that wrought upon their imagination. “I shall work myself a wrapper like this altar-cloth, when I leave this house,” said Casacalenda, “it is so becoming to the skin.”
And she tried it over her hand, a pink and exquisite transparency.
“Dio, when shall I get out of this house!” exclaimed Avigliana.
“Three more months, eight days, and seven hours,” said Pentasuglia.
“Doesn’t Altimare wish she were out of it?” murmured Vitali.
“Goodness knows how they will punish her,” said Spaccapietra.
“If I were she, I should give the Directress a piece of my mind.”