“No!” Marietta raised her voice, for his speedier conviction.  “There is no St. Anthony of Lisbon.  St. Anthony of Padua.”

“What’s the use of sticking to your guns in that obstinate fashion?” Peter complained.  “It’s mere pride of opinion.  Don’t you know that the ready concession of minor points is a part of the grace of life?”

“When you lose an object, you put up a candle to St. Anthony of Padua,” said Marietta, weary but resolved.

“Not unless you wish to recover the object,” contended Peter.

Marietta stared at him, blinking.

“I have no wish to recover the object I have lost,” he continued blandly.  “The loss of it is a new, thrilling, humanising experience.  It will make a man of me—­and, let us hope, a better man.  Besides, in a sense, I lost it long ago —­’when first my smitten eyes beat full on her,’ one evening at the Francais, three, four years ago.  But it’s essential to my happiness that I should see the person into whose possession it has fallen.  That is why I am not angry with you for being a witch.  It suits my convenience.  Please arrange with the powers of darkness to the end that I may meet the person in question tomorrow at the latest.  No!” He raised a forbidding hand.  “I will listen to no protestations.  And, for the rest, you may count upon my absolute discretion.

’She is the darling of my heart
And she lives in our valley,’”

he carolled softly.

“E del mio cuore la carina,
E dimor’ nella nostra vallettina,”

he obligingly translated.  “But for all the good I get of her, she might as well live on the top of the Cornobastone,” he added dismally.  “Yes, now you may bring me my coffee—­only, let it be tea.  When your coffee is coffee it keeps me awake at night.”

Marietta trudged back to her kitchen, nodding at the sky.

The next afternoon, however, the Duchessa di Santangiolo appeared on the opposite bank of the tumultuous Aco.

IX

Peter happened to be engaged in the amiable pastime of tossing bread-crumbs to his goldfinches.

But a score or so of sparrows, vulture-like, lurked under cover of the neighbouring foliage, to dash in viciously, at the critical moment, and snatch the food from the finches’ very mouths.

The Duchessa watched this little drama for a minute, smiling, in silent meditation:  while Peter—­who, for a wonder, had his back turned to the park of Ventirose, and, for a greater wonder still perhaps, felt no pricking in his thumbs—­remained unconscious of her presence.

At last, sorrowfully, (but there was always a smile at the back of her eyes), she shook her head.

“Oh, the pirates, the daredevils,” she sighed.

Peter started; faced about; saluted.

“The brigands,” said she, with a glance towards the sparrows’ outposts.

“Yes, poor things,” said he.

“Poor things?” cried she, indignant.  “The unprincipled little monsters!”