“Oh, do not you too annoy me!” cried Biagio, exasperated. “You may thank your God, Scossi, that I have not a stick in my hand. Get out at once. I shall return to the city to-morrow. This evening I am going to make up for it all by staying here. I shall wring the neck of the goose that looks so like her and eat it all for supper, with the appetite of a cannibal. Get out!”
But Nannetta wished to keep Scossi for dinner. At table Biagio explained to him why he had escaped.
“I do not say that she actually loves me; but it is near, do you know? Who would ever have expected it? Of course I understand that I am a very good-looking fellow, agreeable—” Nannetta protested with a laugh.
“And I assure you that she gave me a veritable lecture like a real wife.”
“Poor woman!” cried Nannetta. “If what you say is true, then all of you, especially you, Biagio, have been cruel beyond comparison. Go, make up to her for it now. Believe me, it is the best thing that you can do.”
Biagio Speranza did not open his lips, but opened his eyes very wide, and stared at Nannetta with such an expression that she smiled, and repeated: “Poor woman!”
“Enough, enough, my dear!” interrupted Scossi. “Or you will keep him from ever returning to the city.”
“No, no,” said Biagio seriously. “I have promised, and I will come. To think of it! For the diversion of humanity, Destiny had contrived a truly ideal marriage: Cocco Bertolli and Carolinona. I, fool, stupid, imbecile, go and interfere with her plans. I must pay for it. That great man loved her, his dove, and now I must show him the door. I feel remorseful, I assure you, but I have promised, and I will keep my word.”
The evening of the same day Dario Scossi related to the friend of the pension what he had done, where he had found Speranza, and in whose company. Cedebonis feigned to be scandalized at such immediate infidelity; but Scossi, who, in relating the affair, had allowed this information to escape him without intending it, replied that Carolinona should not take it amiss in him. Wives were made purposely to be deceived by their husbands, and vice versa, except in the case of the Martinelli couple, of course, who were unique beneath the heavens. Finally he announced that Biagio Speranza would return without fail the evening of the following day. “The sheep will return to the fold.”