“Well, it is better than not to be set right at all,” said Lucia.  “You see, if you had strangled poor papa, it would have been dreadful!  Oh, Tista, promise me that you will not do anything violent!  Of course he is very unkind, I know.  But it would be terrible if you were to be angry and hurt him.  You will not, Tista?  Tell me you will not?”

“We shall see; we shall see, my love!”

“You do not love me if you will not promise.”

“Oh, if that is all, my love, I will promise never to lay a finger on him until you are actually married to some one else.  But then—­” Gianbattista made the gesture which means driving the knife into an enemy.

“Then you may do anything you please,” answered Lucia, with a laugh.  “He will never make me marry any one but you.  You know that, my heart!”

“In that case we ought to be married very soon,” argued the young man.  “We need not live here, you know.  Indeed, it would be out of the question.  We will take one of those pretty little places in the new quarter—­”

“That is so far away,” interrupted the girl.

“Yes, but there is the tramway, and there are omnibuses.  It only takes a quarter of an hour.”

“But you would be so far from me all day, my love.  I could not run into the studio at all hours, and you would not come home for dinner.  Oh!  I could not bear it!”

“Very well, we will try and find something near here,” said Gianbattista, yielding the point.  “We will get a little apartment near the Minerva, where there is sun.”

“And we will have a terrace on the top of the house, with pots of carnations.”

“And red curtains on rings, that we can draw; it is such a pretty light when the sun shines through them.”

“And green wall paper with blue furniture,” suggested Lucia.  “It is so gay.”

“Or perhaps the furniture of the same colour as the paper—­you know they have it so in all fashionable houses.”

“Well, if it is really the fashion, I suppose we must,” assented the girl rather regretfully.

“Yes, it is the fashion, my heart, and you must have everything in the fashion.  But I must be going,” added the young man, rising from his seat.

“Already?  It is early, Tista—­” she hesitated, “Dear Tista,” she began again, her dark eyes resting anxiously on his face, “what will you say to him in the workshop?  You will tell him that I would rather die than marry Carnesecchi, that we are solemnly promised, that nothing shall part us!  You will make him see reason, Tista, will you not?  I cannot go to him, or I would; and mamma, poor mamma, is so afraid of him when he is in his humours.  There are only you and Uncle Paolo to manage him; and after the way he insulted Uncle Paolo last night, it will be all the harder.  Think of it, Tista, while you are at work, and bring me word when you come to dinner.”

“Never fear, love,” replied Gianbattista confidently; “what else should I think of while I am hammering away all day?  A little kiss, to give me courage.”