Have you brought me the medicine, Beppo?\'

\'The what, Signora Cecca? Oh, the medicine? I don\'t call it medicine: I call it ————\'

Cecca clapped her hand angrily upon his lips. \'Fool,\' she said, \'what are you babbling about? Give me the bottle and say no more about it. That\'s a good friend indeed. I owe you a thank-you for this, truly.\'

\'But, Cecca, what do you want it for? You must swear to me solemnly what you want it for. The police, you know——\'

Cecca laughed merrily—a joyous laugh, with no sorcery in it. One would have said, the guileless merriment of a little simple country maiden. \'The police, indeed,\' she cried, softly but gaily. \'What have the police got to do with it, I wonder? I want to poison a cat, a monster of a cat, that wails and screams every night outside my window; and you must go and wrap the thing up in as much mystery as if—— Well, there! it\'s lucky nobody at Rome can understand good sound Calabrian even if they overhear it, or you\'d go and make the folks suspicious with your silly talking—and so loud, too.\'

Giuseppe looked at her, and muttered slowly something inarticulate. Then he looked again in a stealthy, frightened fashion; and at last he made up his mind to speak out boldly.

\'Cecca! stop! I know what you want that little phial for.\'

Cecca turned and smiled at him saucily. \'Oh, you know!\' she said in a light ironical tone. \'You know, do you? Then, body of God, it\'s no use my telling you, so that\'s all about it.\'

\'Cecca,\' the young man said again, snatching at the tiny bottle, which she still held gingerly between her finger and thumb, as if toying with it and fondling it, \'I\'ve been watching you round at the Englishman\'s studio, and I\'ve found out what you want the—the medicine for.\'

Cecca\'s forehead puckered up quickly into a scowling frown (as when she sat for Clytemnestra), and she answered angrily, \'You\'ve been playing the spy, then, have you really? I thank you, Signor Giuseppe, I thank you.\'

\'Listen, Cecca. I have been watching the Englishman\'s studio. There comes an English lady there, a beautiful tall lady, with a military father—a lady like this:\' and Giuseppe put on in a moment a ludicrous caricature of Gwen\'s gait and carriage and manner. \'You have seen her, and you are jealous of her.\'

Quick as lightning, Cecca saw her opportunity, and caught at it instinctively with Italian cunning. Giuseppe was right in principle, there was no denying it; but he had mistaken between Gwen and Minna. He had got upon the wrong tack, and she would not undeceive him. Keeping her forehead still dexterously bent to the same terrible scowl as before, and never for a second betraying her malicious internal smile of triumph, she answered, as if angry at being detected, \'Jealous! and of her! Signor Giuseppe, you are joking.\'

\'I am not joking, Cecca. I can see you are jealous this very moment. You love the Englishman. What is the good of loving him? He will not marry you, and you will not marry him: you would do much better to take, after all, to poor old Beppo. But you\'re jealous of the tall lady, because you think the Englishman\'s in love with her. What does it matter to you or me whether he is or whether he isn\'t? And it is for her that you want the medicine.\'

Cecca drew a long breath and pretended to be completely baffled. \'Give me the bottle,\' she cried; \'give me the bottle, Beppo.\'

Giuseppe held it triumphantly at arm\'s length above his head.

\'Not till you swear to me, Cecca, that you don\'t want to use it against the tall lady.\' Cecca wrung her hands in mock despair. \'You won\'t give it to me, Beppo? You won\'t give it to me? What do you want me to swear it by? The holy water—the rosary—the medal of the holy father?\'

Giuseppe smiled a smile of contemptuous superciliousness.

\'Holy water!—rosary!—Pope!\' he cried, \'Much you care for them indeed, Signora. No, no; you must swear by something that will bind you firmly. You mus............