‘That’s our trick,’ he said.  ’I guessed so.  Fund up, our little Maria of the dirty fingers’-ends!  We accept no money from true patriots.  Grub in other ground, my dear!’

The woman stretched her throat awry, and set up a howl like a dog; but her claws came out when he seized her.

‘Would you disgrace me, old fowl?’

‘Lorenzo, may you rot like a pumpkin!’

The connubial reciprocities were sharp until the money lay on the table, when the woman began whining so miserably that Vittoria’s sensitive nerves danced on her face, and at her authoritative interposition, Lorenzo very reluctantly permitted his wife to take what he chose to reckon a fair portion of the money, and also of his contempt.  She seemed to be licking the money up, she bent over it so greedily.

‘Poor wretch!’ he observed; ‘she was born on a hired bed.’

Vittoria felt that the recollection of this woman would haunt her.  It was inconceivable to her that a handsome young man like Lorenzo should ever have wedded the unsweet creature, who was like a crawling image of decay; but he, as if to account for his taste, said that they had been of a common age once, when he married her; now she had grown old.  He repeated that she ‘was born on a hired bed.’  They saw nothing further of her.

Vittoria’s desire was to get to Meran speedily, that she might see her friends, and have tidings of her lover and the city.  Those baffled beacon-flames on the heights had become an irritating indicative vision:  she thirsted for the history.  Lorenzo offered to conduct her over the Tonale Pass into the Val di Sole, or up the Val Furva, by the pass of the Corno dei Tre Signori, into the Val del Monte to Pejo, thence by Cles, or by Bolzano, to Meran.  But she required shoeing and refitting; and for other reasons also, she determined to go on to Bormio.  She supposed that Angelo had little money, and that in a place such as Bormio sounded to her ears she might possibly obtain the change for the great money-order which the triumph of her singing had won from Antonio-Pericles.  In spite of Angelo’s appeals to her to hurry on to the end of her journey without tempting chance by a single pause, she resolved to go to Bormio.  Lorenzo privately assured her that there were bankers in Bormio.  Many bankers, he said, came there from Milan, and that fact she thought sufficient for her purpose.  The wanderers parted regretfully.  A little chapel, on a hillock off the road, shaded by chestnuts, was pointed out to Lorenzo where to bring a letter for Angelo.  Vittoria begged Angelo to wait till he heard from her; and then, with mutual wavings of hands, she was driven out of his sight.

CHAPTER XXV

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS

After parting from Vittoria, Angelo made his way to an inn, where he ate and drank like a man of the fields, and slept with the power of one from noon till after morning.  The innkeeper came up to his room, and, finding him awake, asked him if he was disposed to take a second holiday in bed.  Angelo jumped up; as he did so, his stiletto slipped from under his pillow and flashed.