“Listen, amico mio,” he said. “As you say, it is a bad business; and, arrange it how you will, it will never be well that those two shall live here. The last of it will never be heard,—if I know your people. I am going away to Livorno next week, and I have asked Oreste to go with me. I like the fellow, and away from here she may come to her senses. She is young, and, guilty though she may be, she does not seem case-hardened.”
“Going away!” exclaimed the startled priest, in dismay. “And going to take those two away from their own country,—to a foreign place! What an idea,—but what an idea!”
“Scarcely foreign; it is only the other side of Florence.”
“Ah, ah! to you, but to us villagers! It is not a little thing to leave one’s home, where one has been born and bred, and knows his neighbors, after all, whether they be good or bad. It is a great thing to know one’s neighbors. And to go so far!—but they will think twice before they say ‘Yes.’”
“On the contrary, Oreste goes willingly. I do not think he is so blind; he knows well they are not friendly to his sposa here.”
“And Gioja,” said the startled priest, “will she go?”
“He says so.”
The priest drew a long breath, half relief, half regret, and wholly wonder.
“Well, well, it is perhaps the best that could happen. But to lose two of my flock—and to leave one’s country like that! You are a strange people, you Americans. And what becomes of us without either you or the Signorina Americana here in the villa?”
“There are more Americans,” replied the Signore, smiling; “and who knows but that your Signorina will return to make you more trouble yet?”