"But you won't betray us to anybody?" she said, holding up, as if in prayer, her little hands, that looked like the delicate petals of the white lily. "You won't tell anybody of our conversation at the rose bushes? If you promise, I'll give you a kiss; I will, indeed!"
"But, Cenni!" cried Countess Diodora, shocked, "what expression is that again?"
The little one looked like a scolded school-girl, who does not know what crime she has been punished for, and said, poutingly—
"But I want him to keep the secret, and I must give him a reward."
"You always forget that you are no longer a little girl of twelve years, but a grown-up young lady, although, God knows, you do not look like it!" said the countess, with a humorous shake of the head.
"Now you great debater and future lawgiver, what do you say to this offered reward? Answer ex tripode!" said Siegfried, laughingly.
"I say that I am no usurer, and cannot take unlawful interest," I replied.
"Bravo! bravissimo! A usurer! Unlawful interest he calls a kiss! Oh, what a moral fellow!" cried Siegfried; but Countess Diodora observed that breakfast was waiting, and that we had time enough for ventilating academic questions afterward.
At the table I sat between Countess Diodora and Countess Flamma. The latter turned to me, and said in her quiet and sober way—
"But I discovered soon enough that the sea-turtle was not a sea-dove, did I not?"