“Or because he hasn’t the money to pay for a ticket,” persisted Sanna, with the triumphant malevolence of morbid natures.
Lucia struck him with the lightning of her glance, but made no answer. Caterina was too embarrassed to say anything. She looked at the stage; the fencers were two professionals; they had coarse voices, and arms that mowed the air like the poles of the semaphore telegraph. The audience paid small heed. Giovanna Casacalenda talked to her Commendatore, who was standing behind her, while she cast oblique glances at Roberto Gentile, the young officer in the brand-new uniform, who occupied a fauteuil underneath her box.
“Do you not fence, Signor Sanna?” asked Caterina by way of conversation.
“Fence!” said Lucia, vivaciously, giving her cousin tit-for-tat. “Fence, indeed, when he hasn’t breath to say more than four words at a time!”
The Signora Lieti reddened and trembled, out of sheer pity for Sanna’s pallor.
The silence in the box was more embarrassing than ever; then as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Lucia separated a gardenia from the bunch in her waistband, and gave it to Alberto. A little colour suffused his thin cheeks, he coughed weakly.
“Are you not well, Alberto...?” laying her hand upon his arm.
“Not quite, it’s the cold,” said he, with the whine of a sickly child.
“Have a glass of punch, to warm you?”
“It’s bad for my chest.”