“_Mia vita!_” he gasped. “Do you know what you will do if you talk so? You will drive me mad! I swear that I love you better than life. I would die with you, my angel of God. With every breath I love you, love you, love you!” “O Madonna, _che peccato!_ It is too late! She has the _biglietto_ for the ship. They say I must go now.” “Then, by the sword of the saint, I will go too!” And go he did on the ship that carried Carolina and Marianna, though it was not love alone that drew him after her. In America his fame was to be erected, and for some time he had been thinking that it would be well for him to be on the spot, and give Bertino a hand with the architecture. The white towers of Genoa were still visible when Carolina came face to face in the companion way with the _amante_, from whom she was felicitating herself she had separated Marianna forever. “What is he doing on this ship?” she demanded of the girl. “Going to America.” “Bah! I know that. Is he following you?” “Yes, signora.” Of course she tried to keep them apart, and of course failed drearily every day of the voyage. While she hunted the vessel over for them, they would be enjoying a quiet exchange of confidences in one of the secret nooks known only to lovers on shipboard. One day Armando confessed to a hopeless state of pocket. It had taken well-nigh every _soldo_ he could raise to pay his passage. What he should do to support himself in America was, he owned, a knotty problem, but one that could remain unsolved only until his bust should be seen, admired, and purchased by the First Lady of the Land. It had been shipped three weeks before; already it was in America, and, oh, glorious thought! perhaps at that very moment standing upon a costly pedestal in the White House. Even if her Majesty the Presidentessa had not found it convenient as yet to receive it, she would do so in a fortnight at the longest. Great people like that always took their time. Meanwhile had he not Bertino, his bosom friend and commercial representative in the American market, to stand by him? With this golden view Marianna was in full accord, and his twenty years and her seventeen could see nothing to worry about in the New World. CHAPTER XI A RACE TO THE SWIFT THE morning that Carolina sailed for Genoa, Signor Di Bello began to reconsider the roar of derision with which he had treated Juno’s matrimonial aims, and before the day was out he had made up his mind to possess her as his wife. To be sure, he had promised Carolina not to marry for three months, and this pledge, given on his saint’s day, was of course inviolable; but he reasoned that there would be no breach of faith in offering Juno his hand, and having the nuptials set three months to a day from the Feast of St. George. He sat in the shop thinking over the great matter, when the sunlit floor was darkened by the shadow of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods.