"Madama, I do indeed," he answered sadly, for he saw his house about his ears.
Lionella checked herself; she bit her lip, put her hands ostentatiously behind her back.
"You had better leave the house, Master Angioletto," said she drily, "before I go further and see to it."
He bowed himself out. Then he sought his poor Bellaroba, found her in the garden, drew her aside without trouble of a pretext, and told her the whole story.
"My lovely dear," he said, "I am a broken man. There has been a terrible scene with Madama, in which she got so much the worst of it that I was very triumphantly ruined. You behold me decked with the ashes of my scorched prosperity. What is to be done with you? For I must go."
"Oh, Angioletto," cried Bellaroba, trembling and catching at his breast, "won't you—can't you—ruin me too? Then we shall be happy again."
He pressed her to his heart. "Dearest dear," he said, half laughing, half sobbing, "you are quite ruined enough. Stay as you are. I will see you every night What! By the Mass, are you not my wife?"
"Of course I am, Angioletto. But nobody thinks so—not even any priest."
"Eh!" he cried, "but that is all the better. Only you and I and Madonna the Virgin of the Greeks know it. She never blabs secrets, and you dare not, and I can't. So you see it is well arranged."
She loved him most of all in this gay humour, and provoked him to new flights.