“Maria, Maria!” he cried; “why have you done this?”
She humbled herself, taking his hands to kiss them in an act of profound contrition.
But releasing himself, he made two or three turns of the room, then returned to her.
“And what has _that_ reptile said to you? Repeat to me what that horrid man said to you.”
“Oh, he is so horrid as to make one shudder.”
“How am I to tell them? They are infamous things.”
“But speak, at least speak! Do you wish to make me die of anger and impatience?”
“No, Marco. I will tell you all. Come, sit beside me, be tranquil. I don’t like to see you so. You must be calm, my love, so that I may tell you all; you must be sweet and loving, and not so disturbed and wicked.”
“Maria, I am waiting,” he said, almost without listening to her, folding his arms.
“Listen; it is true I ought not to have gone to the meeting with Gianni Provana. I have erred greatly, but a secret terror has been too much for me; I wished to know what he had to tell me. Could it not be perhaps a secret threat for me, for you?”
“I, too, nothing; but I went to know. That man is so perverse, and he is always seeing my husband.”
“Then he came for Emilio Guasco?” he exclaimed, rising.
“To tell you what in the name of Emilio Guasco?”
“It is false, I swear!” exclaimed Marco Fiore, with vehemence.
“To suggest to me that I no longer love you.”
“I swear it,” she replied, with a grave voice.
“And then, as our love had been killed, it was necessary and right to re-enter the lawful, to re-enter the moral, to resume my place in society, to return esteemed, respected, honoured.”
“So,” he exclaimed in the height of anger, “this husband of yours, this friend of his, beyond me, above me, and against me, laughing at me, propose that you should leave me and return to Casa Guasco?”
“After three years of a life of love, our only and unique life of love, you should return to Casa Guasco?”
The physiognomy of Marco Fiore became transfigured. A convulsion of bitterness, of suffering, of fury shook it continuously; that slightly morbid insouciance, which composed its poetry together with its youth, had quite vanished, showing only a face of energy, crossed by sentiments more unrestrainedly virile.
“And your husband, whom they say is a man of honour, would he forget the dishonour?”