He drew her into the _caffè_, and sought a table far from the door. “What do you want to say to me?” asked Juno. She had responded not at all to Signor Di Bello’s passionate greeting. “Ah, my angel! I want to say to you what I would have said long ago if I had found you. The hunt I have had! And once when I caught sight of you, it was only to have you vanish again like a wine bubble. Where have you been? How beautiful you are! Oh, the grand hunt!” “Why have you hunted for me?” she said, releasing her hand from his, and moving her chair. “To offer you what you demanded--a wedding ring.” “You wish to make me your wife?” “Yes. Before the Madonna, it is true! Months and months ago I was ready.” For a moment Juno was silent, contemplative. Then she said, eying him steadily: “Would you have married me before I left Mulberry?” “Yes; _Dio_ my witness.” “Why did you not come to me and say so?” “But I could not find you. My nephew, Bertino, will tell you that I speak truth. I told him that I intended to make you my wife.” “When did you tell him that?” she asked quickly, leaning forward and awaiting the answer eagerly, while Signor Di Bello strove to recollect. “Ah, yes, now I have it,” he said at length. “I remember because it was the day after my sister Carolina sailed for Genova--two days after the Feast of San Giorgio, my saint.” The recollection rose clear to Juno that it was on the day following Carolina’s departure that she and Bertino went to the little rectory in Second Avenue. And equally vivid to her consciousness stood forth the inflaming truth that Bertino, with full knowledge of Signor Di Bello’s purpose to take her for wife, had hastened their union in order to checkmate his rival. So this moneyless clerk had tricked her into marriage, and cheated her of a rich husband! “_Maledetto!_” she said in a half-stifled voice. At the same instant there flashed in her brain a resolve to rid herself of Bertino. “Why _maledetto_?” asked the signore. “Do you not accept my offer?” “Another time I will give you my answer,” she said, rising. “I must go.” They stood outside, he holding her hand and looking up into her face with worshipful eyes. Suddenly she drew back, and without a parting word took herself off. A face that she had seen in a near-by doorway made her eager to end the interview. She had gone but a few paces when Bertino was by her side. “So you are here, and putting horns on your husband?” he said, gripping her arm. “Welcome, signora, welcome!” A smile of hellish mockery played on his livid face. “No, I am not,” she pleaded, a tremor in her voice, because she knew her race. He laughed, and gripped her arm tighter. “I know,” he said. “You want a rich man.” Then, with his lips close to her ear: “Do you think you will live?” “It is not my fault,” she said, still pleading. “What can a woman do when a man plays the fool and annoys her?” “He annoys you?”