But Roma seemed to hear everything that was said about her, and constantly broke in upon a whispered conversation with disconcerting openness.
"That man here!" said one of the journalists at Rossi's entrance. "In the same room with the Prime Minister!" said another. "After that disgraceful scene in the House, too!"
"I hear that he was abominably rude to the Baron the other day," said Madame Sella.
"Rude? He has blundered shockingly, and offended everybody. They tell me the Vatican is now up in arms against him, and is going to denounce him and all his ways."
"No wonder! He has made himself thoroughly disagreeable, and I'm only surprised that the Prime Minister...."
"Oh, leave the Prime Minister alone. He has something up his sleeve.... Haven't you heard why we are invited here to-day? No? Not heard that...."
"Really! So that explains ... I see, I see!" and then more tittering and tapping of fans.
"Certainly, he is an extraordinary man, and one of the first statesmen in Europe."
"It's so unselfish of you to say that," said Roma, flashing round suddenly, "for the Minister has never been a friend of journalists, and I've heard him say that there wasn't one of them who wouldn't sell his mother's honour if he thought he could make a sensation."
"Love?" said the voice of Don Camillo in the silence that followed Roma's remark. "What has marriage to do with love except to spoil it?" And then, amidst laughter, and the playful looks of the ladies by whom he was surrounded, he gave a gay picture of his own poverty, and the necessity of marrying to retrieve his fortunes.