She said nothing. She was listening with deep but still surprised attention.
"Then I could—I could go to your father and ask him——"
He stopped.
"What could you ask him, signorino?"
"Can't you guess?"
"No, signore."
"I might ask him to let me marry you. I should—if it were like that—I should ask him to let me marry you."
"Davvero?"
An expression of intense pleasure, and of something more—of pride—had come into her face. She could not divest herself imaginatively of her conception of him as a rich forestiere, and she saw herself placed high above "the other girls," turned into a lady.
"Magari!" she murmured, drawing in her breath, then breathing out.