She shook her head.
“No, they wouldn’t tell his father—he tried to find out.”
“And you couldn’t get north of Mestre. It’s all military zone now, you know.”
“Is it?” she answered vacantly. “I had to come,” she repeated like a child, “and I feel better already—I’m so much nearer him.... Don’t you really think I can get to see him for a few minutes?”
I spent a futile hour, while Giuseppe pushed us languidly through the gray lagoons, trying to convince Signora Maironi that her search for the boy was worse than useless, might easily land her in prison should she attempt to penetrate the lines. At the end she merely remarked:
“’Rico expects me—he said that last night,—‘You will come up north to see me, mother, before war is declared.’”
Thereat I began again at the beginning and tried more urgently to distract the signora from her purpose.
“You might be locked up as a spy!” I concluded.
“But I am an Italian woman—an Italian mother!” she cried indignantly.
Giuseppe nodded sympathetically over his long sweep and murmured something like “Évero!” It ended by my asking the old fellow if he knew where the office of the Venetian commandant was.