“Just like Caterina, then?”
“Oh! exactly like her.”
“You are two happy people.” Her accent was bitter.
He felt the pain in it. He looked at her, and was troubled. Perhaps, he had after all been hard upon the poor girl. What had she done to him? She was sickly and full of fancies. The more reason for pitying her. She was an ill-cared-for, unloved creature who was losing her way in life.
“Why don’t you marry?” he said, suddenly.
“Why?” ... in astonishment.
“Why? ... yes. Girls ought to marry, it cures them of their vagaries.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lucia, and she hid her face in her hands.
“Now I suppose I have said something stupid again? I will give you Caterina’s message and be gone, before you turn me out.”
“No, Signor Lieti. Who knows but what your bourgeois common sense is right.”