Beppo thereby receiving the cue he had commenced beating for, swore to its truth profoundly, and straightway directed his statement to prove that his mistress had not been politically (or amorously, if the suspicion aimed at her in those softer regions) indiscreet or blameable in any of her actions.  The signorina, he said, never went out from her abode without the companionship of her meritorious mother and his own most humble attendance.  He, Beppo, had a master and a mistress, the Signor Mertyrio and the Signorina Vittoria.  She saw no foreigners:  though—­a curious thing!—­he had seen her when the English language was talked in her neighbourhood; and she had a love for that language:  it made her face play in smiles like an infant’s after it has had suck and is full;—­the sort of look you perceive when one is dreaming and hears music.  She did not speak to foreigners.  She did not care to go to foreign cities, but loved Milan, and lived in it free and happy as an earwig in a ripe apricot.  The circumvallation of Milan gave her elbow-room enough, owing to the absence of forts all round—­’which knock one’s funny-bone in Verona, signora.’  Beppo presented a pure smile upon a simple bow for acceptance.  ‘The air of Milan,’ he went on, with less confidence under Laura’s steady gaze, and therefore more forcing of his candour—­’the sweet air of Milan gave her a deep chestful, so that she could hold her note as long as five lengths of a fiddle-bow:—­by the body of Sant’ Ambrogio, it was true!’ Beppo stretched out his arm, and chopped his hand edgeways five testificatory times on the shoulder-ridge.  ’Ay, a hawk might fly from St. Luke’s head (on the Duomo) to the stone on San Primo over Como, while the signorina held on her note!  You listened, you gasped—­you thought of a poet in his dungeon, and suddenly, behold, his chains are struck off!—­you thought of a gold-shelled tortoise making his pilgrimage to a beatific shrine!—­you thought—­you knew not what you thought!’

Here Beppo sank into a short silence of ecstasy, and wakening from it, as with an ardent liveliness:  ’The signora has heard her sing?  How to describe it!  Tomorrow night will be a feast for Milan.’

’You think that the dilettanti of Milan will have a delight to-morrow night?’ said Laura; but seeing that the man’s keen ear had caught note of the ironic reptile under the flower, and unwilling to lose further time, she interdicted his reply.

’Beppo, my good friend, you are a complete Italian—­you waste your cleverness.  You will gratify me by remembering that I am your countrywoman.  I have already done you a similar favour by allowing you to air your utmost ingenuity.  The reflection that it has been to no purpose will neither scare you nor instruct you.  Of that I am quite assured.  I speak solely to suit the present occasion.  Now, don’t seek to elude me.  If you are a snake with friends as well as enemies, you are nothing but a snake.  I ask you—­you are not compelled to answer, but I forbid you to lie—­has your mistress seen, or conversed and had correspondence with any one receiving the Tedeschi’s gold, man or woman?  Can any one, man or woman, call her a traitress?’