“I come here as an ambassador, Signora Lucia. Shall I present my credentials to the reigning powers?”
“Here are your credentials,” she said, pointing to the portrait of Caterina.
“Yes, there’s Nini. My government told me to go and prosper, and be received with the honours due to the representative of a reigning power.”
“Did Caterina say all that?”
“Not all. It’s in honour of your imagination, Signora Lucia, that I embellish my wife’s few words with flowers of rhetoric.”
“So you reproach me with my imagination,” said the girl, in an aggrieved tone, casting a circular glance at her friends, as if in appeal against such injustice.
“By no means; mayn’t one venture a joke? In short, Caterina said to me, 'At three you are to go....’”
“Is it already three?” broke in Galimberti, inopportunely.
“Past three, as your watch will tell you, my dear Professor.”
“Mine has stopped,” he replied mendaciously, not caring to exhibit a huge silver family relic. “I must take my departure.”