"Better not. She is not like us. She thinks to tell a lie is a sin against the Madonna, I believe."
"But then what will the padrone do?" asked Lucrezia, innocently.
"Tell his woman the truth, like all husbands," replied Sebastiano, with a broadly satirical grin. "As your man will some day, Lucrezia mia. All husbands are good and faithful. Don't you know that?"
"Macchè!"
She laughed loudly, with an incredulity quite free from bitterness.
"Men are not like us," she added. "They tell us whatever they please, and do always whatever they like. We must sit in the doorway and keep our back to the street for fear a man should smile at us, and they can stay out all night, and come back in the morning, and say they've been fishing at Isola Bella, or sleeping out to guard the vines, and we've got to say, 'Si, Salvatore!' or 'Si, Guido!' when we know very well—"
"What, Lucrezia?"
She looked into his twinkling eyes and reddened slightly, sticking out her under lip.
"I'm not going to tell you."
"You have no business to know."