“It is necessary to see,” objected Scossi, “whether Carolinona consents.”
Biagio Speranza turned toward his betrothed.
“Would you do me such a wrong? To such a good-looking young fellow as me? No, no; you see? My bride laughs, and the world laughs. It is settled, gentlemen!”
At this point Trunfo leaped to his feet, furiously tearing the napkin from his neck.
“Let us make an end to it once for all! This senseless, stupid jest gets on my nerves; this jest on a subject which you do not understand, and which I will tell you about, by Heaven!”
At thought of Trunfo’s matrimonial disaster there was a moment of embarrassment. All the faces became fixed in the act of laughing, then the laughter suddenly ceased.
“Pardon me,” said Biagio Speranza pacifically. “Why do you persist in believing that this is a joke of mine? I know better than you what an enormous folly it is to marry, and repeat that it is to prevent myself from committing such an act that I am marrying Carolinona.”
“The reasoning could not be more logical,” remarked Dario Scossi, again provoking all to mirth. “And I appeal to Cedebonis, professor of logic.”
“Most logical, most logical!” the latter affirmed. “Signor Speranza is, in fact, marrying so to escape the temptation of marrying.”
“Exactly!” replied Biagio Speranza. “And this is no joke. For Carolinona is seriously afraid of the poet Cocco Bertolli, and I am seriously afraid of losing my liberty some day or other. By marrying, we are both saving ourselves; she from that kind of a husband, I from a feared reality of a future wife. Married, we are both of us absolutely free to do whatever we please. She here, and I in my own home. In the eyes of the law, we have but the name in common, which is not properly a name at all, I beg you to observe, gentlemen. Speranza[1], just a common noun; I do not know what to do with it, and I cede it voluntarily. What do you say, Carolinona?”