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Before she knew it was coming, she had leaned her head against the balustrade with a deep sob. She caught herself sharply. She to sit there crying, while Tony went whistling on his way! As the Farfalla drifted idly over the water, Constance sat in the stern, her chin in her hand, moodily gazing at the shimmering path of moonlight.
'The wall on the farther side is harder to climb than the one you came in by; and besides, it has broken glass on the top. Giuseppe raised the yellow sail and the Farfalla, with a graceful dip, glided out to sea. The young man stood eyeing its progress revengefully. Now that the girl was out of hearing, a number of pointed things occurred to him which he might have said.
They were the great people of this region for countless generations, the Farfalla. They were Princes of Ventirose and Patricians of Milan. And then the last of them was ruined at Monte Carlo, and killed himself there, twenty-odd years ago. That is how all their gioja and amore ended. It was the case of a butterfly literally broken upon a wheel.
Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard of rope, and the Farfalla listed heavily to starboard. 'Tony! Constance threw over her shoulder. 'Don't you know enough to sit still when you are holding the sheet? 'Scusi, he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; he wore an expression of alert attention.
As he strode away into the dusky lane of cypresses, she heard him whistling softly 'Santa Lucia. It was the last stroke, she reflected angrily; he might at least have omitted that! She turned away and dropped down on the water-steps to wait for the Farfalla. The terrace, the lake, the beautiful Italian night, suddenly seemed deserted and empty.
And Giuseppe that confounded Farfalla with its yellow sails floats back and forth in front of the terrace till I am on the point of having it scuttled as a public nuisance; and those three washer-women and the post-office clerk and the boy who brings milk, and Luigi and every man, woman and child in the village of Valedolmo! 'And my own dad as well? Mr. Wilder shook his head.
The boat fluttering in toward shore, looked like a giant butterfly; and her name, emblazoned in gold on her prow, was, appropriately, the Farfalla. Earlier in the season, with a green hull and a dingy brown sail, she had been, prosaically enough, the Maria. But since the advent of the girl all this had been changed.
The brigadier paid the young man entirely in coppers, so he had a good deal of weight to carry home with him. After coffee we started to walk across the plain back to Custonaci, calling again at the settlement of cottages and waiting for the boats to come in, thinking it possible that the luck brought by the farfalla notturna might take the form of fish. But the boats brought nothing.
The Farfalla dropped her yellow wings with the air of a salute, and lighted at the foot of the water-steps under the terrace. The girl on the parapet leaned forward eagerly. 'Did you get any mail, Giuseppe? she called. 'Si, signorina. He scrambled up the steps and presented a copy of the London Times. She received it with a shrug. Clearly, she felt little interest in the London Times.
Her mother was La Farfalla a swollen butterfly in these days and frankly said that she could not afford such a daughter. Olimpia had no instructions; in fact, needed none. She neither condemned her mother nor approved. Perhaps she had not the wit; assuredly she lacked the energy.
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