“What of your mistress?” said Merthyr.

“When she dies, my dear master, there’s no one for me but the Madonna to serve.”

“Why should she die, silly fellow?”

“Because she never cries.”

Merthyr was on the point of saying, “Why should she cry?” His heart was too full, and he shrank from inquisitive shadows of the thing known to him.

“Sit down at this caffe with me,” he said.  It’s fine weather for March.  The troops will camp comfortably.  Those Hungarians never require tents.  Did you see much sacking of villages last year?”

“Padrone, the Imperial command is always to spare the villages.”

“That’s humane.”

“Padrone, yes; if policy is humanity.”

“It’s humanity not carried quite as far as we should wish it.”

Beppo shrugged and said:  “It won’t leave much upon the conscience if we kill them.”

“Do you expect a rising?” said Merthyr.

“If the Ticino overflows, it will flood Milan,” was the answer.

“And your occupation now is to watch the height of the water?”

“My occupation, padrone?  I am not on the watch-tower.”  Beppo winked, adding:  “I have my occupation.”  He threw off the effort or pretence to be discreet.  “Master of my soul! this is my occupation.  I drink coffee, but I do not smoke, because I have to kiss a pretty girl, who means to object to the smell of the smoke.  Via!  I know her!  At five she draws me into the house.”

“Are you relating your amours to me, rascal?” Merthyr interposed.

“Padrone, at five precisely she draws me into the house.  She is a German girl.  Pardon me if I make no war on women.  Her name is Aennchen, which one is able to say if one grimaces;—­why not?  It makes her laugh; and German girls are amiable when one can make them laugh.  ’Tis so that they begin to melt.  Behold the difference of races!  I must kiss her to melt her, and then have a quarrel.  I could have it after the first, or the fiftieth with an Italian girl; but my task will be excessively difficult with a German girl, if I am compelled to allow myself to favour her with one happy solicitation for a kiss, to commence with.  We shall see.  It is, as my abstention from tobacco declares, an anticipated catastrophe.”

“Long-worded, long-winded, obscure, affirmatizing by negatives, confessing by implication!—­where’s the beginning and end of you, and what’s your meaning?” said Merthyr, who talked to him as one may talk to an Italian servant.

“The contessa, my mistress, has enemies.  Padrone, I devote myself to her service.”

“By making love to a lady’s maid?”

“Padrone, a rat is not born to find his way up the grand staircase.  She has enemies.  One of them was the sublime Barto Rizzo—­admirable—­though I must hate him.  He said to his wife:  ’If a thing happens to me, stab to the heart the Countess Alessandra Ammiani.’”