"But I want to know what sort of body, she is?" returned Manutoli; "I don't need to be told that she is a very lovely woman; but of what sort is she? Why does she keep us all at a distance? What is her game?"
"Upon my life I don't know," answered Ludovico, "unless it's a devouring passion for Leandro. I protest I have no reason to think she cares a button for anything but her own art. I never tried; but it's my impression that if I had ever whispered a word in her ear I should have got a flea in my own for my pains."
"You don't want to make us believe that you have been seeing her frequently all this time,—passing hours with her a quattro occhi, and have never made love to her, Ludovico?" said Farini.
"No; I don't want to make you believe don't care a straw whether you have it or not; but it is the the fact, for all that," returned Ludovico.
"Ludovico has enough on his hands in quarter. What would they say about it in the Via Santa Eufemia if he were to bow down to new and strange goddesses?" said Manutoli.
"That, if you please, Manutoli, we will not discuss either now or at any other time," said Ludovico, with a look that showed he was in earnest. "But, as for La Diva Bianca, I have no objection to tell all I know to anybody. My belief is that she is as correct and proper, and all that sort of thing, as a Vestal."
"Che!"
"Che!"
"Che!"
A chorus of protestations of incredulity in every tone of the gamut met the monstrous assertion.