“We must talk,” she said. “That girl...” And then she checked. “Come with me,” she bade me.
But in that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look for my friend Rinolfo. He was moving stealthily away, following the road Luisina had taken. The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at her, to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all anew.
He halted in his strides, and looked over his shoulder, impudently.
I had never yet been paid by any the deference that was my due. Indeed, I think that among the grooms and serving-men at Mondolfo I must have been held in a certain measure of contempt, as one who would never come to more manhood than that of the cassock.
“Come here,” I bade him, and as he appeared to hesitate I had to repeat the order more peremptorily. At last he turned and came.
“What now, Agostino?” cried my mother, setting a pale hand upon my sleeve
But I was all intent upon that lout, who stood there before me shifting uneasily upon his feet, his air mutinous and sullen. Over his shoulder I had a glimpse of his father's yellow face, wide-eyed with alarm.
“Heh! By Bacchus!” said he impudently, as who would say: “How could I help smiling?”
“Will you tell me why you smiled?” I asked him.
“Heh! By Bacchus!” said he again, and shrugged to give his insolence a barb.
“Will you answer me?” I roared, and under my display of anger he looked truculent, and thus exhausted the last remnant of my patience.
“Agostino!” came my mothers voice in remonstrance, and such is the power of habit that for a moment it controlled me and subdued my violence.
Nevertheless I went on, “You smiled to see your spite succeed. You smiled to see that poor child driven hence by your contriving; you smiled to see your broken snares avenged. And you were following after her no doubt to tell her all this and to smile again. This is all so, it is not?”
“Heh! By Bacchus!” said he for the third time, and at that my patience gave out utterly. Ere any could stop me I had seized him by throat and belt and shaken him savagely.
“Will you answer me like a fool?” I cried. “Must you be taught sense and a proper respect of me?”
“Agostino! Agostino!” wailed my mother. “Help, Ser Giojoso! Do you not see that he is mad!”