“My dear son,” said I,—­for he is a son to me,—­“you are talking nonsense.  How can anybody in your position hope to marry a great lady, who is an heiress?  Is it not true that it is all stuff and nonsense?”

“No, it is not true,” cried Nino, setting his square jaw like a bit and speaking through his teeth.  “I am ugly, you say; I am dark, and I have no position, or wealth, or anything of the kind.  I am the son of a peasant and of a peasant’s wife.  I am anything you please, but I will marry her if I say I will.  Do you think it is for nothing that you have taught me the language of Dante, of Petrarca, of Silvio Pellico?  Do you think it is for nothing that Heaven has given me my voice?  Do not the angels love music, and cannot I make as good songs as they?  Or do you think that because I am bred a singer my hand is not as strong as a fine gentleman’s—­contadino as I am?  I will—­I will and I will, Basta!”

I never saw him look like that before.  He had folded his arms, and he nodded his head a little at each repetition of the word, looking at me so hard, as we stood under the gas lamp in the street, that I was obliged to turn my eyes away.  He stared me out of countenance—­he, a peasant boy!  Then we walked on.

“And as for her being a wax doll, as you call her,” he continued after a little time, “that is nonsense, if you want the word to be used.  Truly, a doll!  And the next minute you compare her to the Madonna!  I am sure she has a heart as big as this,” and he stretched out his hands into the air.  “I can see it in her eyes.  Ah, what eyes!”

I saw it was no use arguing on that tack, and I felt quite sure that he would forget all about it, though he looked so determined, and talked so grandly about his will.

“Nino,” I said, “I am older than you.”  I said this to impress him, of course, for I am not really so very old.

“Diamini!” he cried impertinently, “I believe it!”

“Well, well, do not be impatient.  I have seen something in my time, and I tell you those foreign women are not like ours, a whit.  I fell in love, once, with a northern fairy,—­she was not German, but she came from Lombardy, you see,—­and that is the reason why I lost Serveti and all the rest.”

“But I have no Serveti to lose,” objected Nino.

“You have a career as a musician to lose.  It is not much of a career to be stamping about with a lot of figuranti and scene-shifters, and screaming yourself hoarse every night.”  I was angry because he laughed at my age.  “But it is a career, after all, that you have chosen for yourself.  If you get mixed up in an intrigue now, you may ruin yourself.  I hope you will.”

“Grazie!  And then?”

“Eh, it might not be such a bad thing after all.  For if you could be induced to give up the stage—­”

“I—­I give up singing?” he cried, indignantly.

“Oh, such things happen, you know.  If you were to give it up, as I was saying, you might then possibly use your mind.  A mind is a much better thing than a throat, after all.”