"You foolish Guido!" she said, in dreamily amused accents. "What would have happened, I wonder, if Fabio had not died so opportunely."
I waited eagerly for the answer. Guido laughed lightly.
"He would never have discovered anything. You were too clever for him, piccinina! Besides, his conceit saved him--he had so good an opinion of himself that he would not have deemed it possible for you to care for any other man."
My wife--flawless diamond-pearl of pure womanhood!--sighed half restlessly.
"I am glad he is dead!" she murmured; "but, Guido mio, you are imprudent. You cannot visit me now so often--the servants will talk! Then I must go into mourning for at least six months--and there are many other things to consider."
Guide's hand played with the jeweled necklace she wore--he bent and kissed the place where its central pendant rested. Again--again, good sir, I pray you! Let no faint scruples interfere with your rightful enjoyment! Cover the white flesh with caresses--it is public property! a dozen kisses more or less will not signify! So I madly thought as I crouched among the trees--the tigerish wrath within me making the blood beat in my head like a hundred hammer-strokes.
"Nay then, my love," he replied to her, "it is almost a pity Fabio is dead! While he lived he played an excellent part as a screen--he was an unconscious, but veritable duenna of propriety for both of us, as no one else could be!"
The boughs that covered me creaked and rustled. My wife started, and looked uneasily round her.
"Hush!" she said, nervously. "He was buried only yesterday--and they say there are ghosts sometimes. This avenue, too--I wish we had not come here--it was his favorite walk. Besides," she added, with a slight accent of regret, "after all he was the father of my child--you must think of that."
"By Heaven!" exclaimed Guido, fiercely, "do I not think of it? Ay--and I curse him for every kiss he stole from your lips!"
I listened half stupefied. Here was a new phase of the marriage law! Husbands were thieves then--they "stole" kisses; only lovers were honest in their embraces! Oh, my dear friend--my more than brother--how near you were to death at that moment! Had you but seen my face peering pallidly through the dusky leaves--could you have known the force of the fury pent up within me--you would not have valued your life at one baiocco!
"Why did you marry him?" he asked, after a little pause, during which he toyed with the fair curls that floated against his breast.