“Why need you marry him? Do not. Wait for me here and I will surely come for you,” he said as he drew her to him.
She hid her face on his shoulder. “I dare not send him away,” she whispered. “All Siena would laugh at me, and I should be ashamed to be seen. No other man would ever take me after such a scandal. Besides, you know I must be married. You know that, Filippo! And if you did not come—”
“I shall come.”
She clung to him in silence for a while before she spoke again.
“Why not until January?”
“You will be good if I tell you?” he asked when he had kissed her.
“Yes, yes; only hold me.”
“Gemma, you must know that I am poor. I have told you often how the palace in Florence is shabby, eaten up with moth and rust. The Villa at Certaldo is falling into ruins too. I am poor.”
“You have an automobile, servants, horses; you stay here at the best hotel.”
“I should not be poor for a contadino but I am for a prince,” he said impatiently and with emphasis. “Believe me, I want money, and I must have it. I cannot steal it or earn it, or win it in the lottery unfortunately, so I must marry it.”