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A short silence followed, during which Paoluccio seemed to be meditating, and Nanna began to ladle the beans out into four deep earthenware bowls, roughly glazed and decorated with green and brown stripes. "You are a jewel; you are the joy of my heart," he observed thoughtfully, as Nanna placed his portion before him, covered it with oil, and scattered some chopped basil on the surface.
He threw pieces of the bread and the rind of the cheese to his dog. Nino caught each fragment in the air with a snap that would have lamed a horse for a month. The woman glanced nervously at the animal, each time she heard his jagged teeth close. Paoluccio appeared in due time, without coat or waistcoat, and with his sleeves rolled up above the elbows, as if he had been washing.
"But now," said Paoluccio, swallowing, "if you are not careful she will break all your bones. She has the health of a horse." So the couple discussed matters amiably, while Regina was out of the way.
Some one must have put the story about. A servant, perhaps, whom you sent away." "We did not send Regina away," answered Paoluccio, still furious. "She ran away in the night, about that time. But, as you say, she may have invented the story and sent the newspaper men here to worry our lives with their questions, out of mere spite." "Who was this Regina?" Ercole asked. "What has she to do with it?"
He was better now, and she felt the returning life in him, almost before he was sure of it himself; and while her heart was almost bursting with happiness, so that she smiled to herself throughout her rough work all day long, she knew that he could not stay where he was. Paoluccio expected him to die, and was beginning to be tired of waiting, and so was Nanna.
After the necessary operation of tapping one of his casks and filling it up with water, he lingered on before a measure of the best, while Nanna and Paoluccio dozed in their chairs; and at last all three were asleep. Then Regina went out softly into the dark summer night, and climbed the stairs to the attic. "I am going to take you to Rome to-night," she whispered in Marcello's ear.
Regina knew what that meant, but Paoluccio had ordered her to take care of him, and she had done her best. Paoluccio felt that if the boy died it would be the will of heaven, and that he probably would not live long with such care and such nourishment as he would get up there in the attic.
"The girl must have been very ungrateful if she told untrue stories about your inn, after all you had done for her. You had nourished a viper in your house." "That is what my wife says," Paoluccio answered, now quite calm. "Those are my wife's very words. As for believing that the young man was ever in this house, I tell you that the story is a wicked lie. Where should we have put him?
"Eat, my love," she said, and she cut a huge piece from a coarse loaf and placed it beside him on a folded napkin that looked remarkably clean in such surroundings, and emitted a pleasant odour of dried lavender blossoms. "Where is the girl?" asked Paoluccio, stirring the mess and blowing upon it.
"I thank you for your conversation. I will take a glass of the aniseed before I go, if you please." "Are you going already?" asked Paoluccio, as he went to fetch the bottle and the little cast glass from which he himself had drunk. "Yes," Ercole answered. "I go to Rome. I stopped to refresh myself." "It will be hot on the road," said Paoluccio, setting the full glass down on the table.
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