"I will show you to-morrow what he thinks," replied the good woman, "and perhaps I will give you some of it. There will be a pile of fruit and vegetables a yard high, from his vigna, on this counter to-morrow morning. Run along and tell Sora Mariuccia all about it—and be sure to open the door to him yourself when he brings the medicine."
Giannella was rather reticent with Mariuccia, however, and gave her story of how Sora Amalia's lodger had run off with the prescription in as few words as possible. She expected to receive a good scolding for the indiscretion she must have committed—or permitted—before things reached such a pass, though she could not quite see where she had been in fault.
Mariuccia had no such doubts. "That blessed Sora Amalia!" she exclaimed, her eyebrows meeting in rhadamanthine severity across her low forehead. "What a want of education! Could she not perceive that she was taking the most indiscreet liberty—imposing on the gentleman's good nature, so that he must have been deeply displeased? I will apologize to him when he comes. I will tell him that we are shocked at that woman's imprudence. Four flights of stairs to climb, and his time wasted! I wonder you did not die of shame, Giannella, at being made the occasion of such inconvenience to him."
Giannella remembered Signor Goffi's ecstatic alacrity and ventured to say that he did not seem at all annoyed, on the contrary, very happy to be of service.
"Then," thundered Mariuccia, "you have spoken to him before. You have permitted him to make your acquaintance—in secret. Oh, this is terrible. How can I ever let you out of my sight again?"
"I never spoke to him till this morning," cried the girl. "I have seen him, yes, how could I help it? He comes to Mass every day. Is the church my private chapel? Is no one else to enter it while her Excellency, Giannella Brockmann, is saying her prayers there? How dare you say that I have made his acquaintance in secret? I will not hear such things. You speak as if you believed evil of me."
Was this Mariuccia's submissive Giannella, this outraged young woman with scarlet cheeks and flashing eyes standing up to her inquisitor with rebellion in every tone of her voice? Mariuccia drew back from her in surprise, and before she had recovered enough to reply, the doorbell tinkled hoarsely.
"There he is," said Giannella. "You must open to him yourself. I will not. He would see that you have been pouring shame over me." And she turned her back and sat down to her work, shaking with indignation.
Mariuccia went to the door, nothing loth. "I shall see what he is like at any rate," she told herself in the passage. "Some silly dandy who thinks he can make eyes at a poor girl because she has to go out alone. That's the kind. But I'll settle him." And she opened the door with a jerk and stood squarely on the threshold as if barring the way to impertinent intruders.