"Oh yes," she laughed back, "if Signor Goffi still wants me. Does he know that I have no dowry, no family, no pretty clothes to wear when he takes me out for a walk—that I am nearly twenty-one, and as stupid as a cabbage? Has he considered all these tribulations?"
"If you say another word I shall jump across the street into your room," he declared; "love will carry me over quite safely. And how Mariuccia will scold when she finds me there."
"Audacious one, you grow indiscreet," said Giannella. "To-morrow morning Mariuccia will look for you after the first Mass. Oh, I am so much better. I shall not be ill any more. You have cured me, dear, enlightened doctor. So to-morrow be sure to come to the church in time. I shall not be there, she will not let me go out so soon, but she will tell you everything. Now go, go, beloved, we have talked too long. Even the moon is getting tired of listening to us, see, she veils her face. Good-night, good-night!"
A little cloud had drifted up from the west, shadowing the silvery air to gray, but Rinaldo saw Giannella lean forward and blow him a kiss. Then she resolutely drew the blind into place; he heard the bolt click, and turned to depart. Only just in time, for he became aware that Fra Tommaso was moving in his room. The next instant Rinaldo was over the dividing wall and racing for his own terrace through the ups and downs of the little city on the roof. Then the sacristan's door opened with a rusty creak and the old man, still dazed with sleep, came out and looked about him. The paleness of dawn was in the east, his pigeons stirred and scratched in their cote, and he went and drove them in again with sharp taps.
"Unmannerly fowls that you are," he grumbled, "what have you been making such a disturbance about? I could have sworn someone was talking here. Silly ones, it is only three o'clock. We can all go back to bed for an hour."
CHAPTER XVII
Mariuccia, having decided on her course of action, had confided to Giannella her intention of appealing to Signorino Goffi. She would look for him in church in the morning, and if he was not there, she would find him out at the top of Sora Amalia's house. Did not Giannella think that a fine idea? The padrone had managed to enlist the most excellent Princess on his side (Mariuccia had by this time concluded that the Princess's verdict was given upon insufficient information, and might be combated without impiety); well, she and Giannella would also find a defender, and he at any rate should labor under no misapprehension as to the true state of affairs. Then, closing the window so as to admit no breath of the night air, which the Romans look upon as fatal, she set all the doors open and retired to her cave beyond the kitchen on the other side of the passage.
Giannella had waited until the sound of her deep breathing came regularly through the darkness. Then, panting for air, she had gently closed her door and opened her window. Better malaria than asphyxia, she thought.