She got up and stared blankly at him for a moment as though bewildered—uncertain. There was something very like appeal in her face—he saw it and his heart thumped with triumph.
“Gemma!” His voice was loud and compelling, and after he had called her he smiled. Then all of a sudden she was lying in his arms, giving him back his kisses.
As they stood there the years came down on the boy and dropped away from the woman; they were just two creatures welded into one by an impulse of mutual passion.
He began to speak hotly: “My beautiful! My joy! I will never let you go any more. All my life I have waited, and now I have got you—I am all burning up with this loving.” Then his mood changed, his eyes filled with sudden tears. “You are holy,” he whispered softly. “I must treat you very gently—you are little and weak, and you need Gian-Luca because you are so little.”
But something, perhaps it was the sound of his whispering, made her stiffen as she lay in his arms. With a cry of anger she pushed him away.
“Stop!” she said shrilly. “Stop!”
And then the Padrona sinned in her fear as she had not sinned in her passion. In her fear she struck out wildly like an animal at bay; she accused, she insulted, she degraded. She might have made an appeal to his goodness, to the chivalry that was in him, to that great, shy, virginal spirit of youth that was wrestling with him even now. But instead she confronted him, flushed and disheveled, with the crude, ugly words on her lips.
“Go!” she said finally, pointing to the door. “Go—or I tell my husband!”
And he went, without one more look at the Padrona. He was utterly bewildered, incredulous and outraged. Alone in her room the Padrona wept bitterly, but Gian-Luca’s eyes were quite dry.
VII
That night Gian-Luca returned to the Capo, but this time he did not go in. He hid like a thief in the opposite doorway, watching for the waiters to leave. Mario came first; that was good. He was glad. He shrank farther into the shadow, but Mario passed him with never a glance and went limping away down the street. Then came the new waiter accompanied by the boy; they said goodnight and the waiter caught a bus. The boy looked round him then lit a cigarette—obviously one that he had stolen—after which he too walked away down the street, whistling softly between puffs.
In an upper window of the Capo a light showed—that was the Padrona’s sitting-room. Gian-Luca watched it, and as he did so he was filled with a queer, ugly sense of pleasure. He was glad that the light should stream out between the curtains; it meant that the Padrona was near; and he thought of what he was about to do and felt glad that she should be near him. A door opened and shut, Schmidt came across the road—he was now all but touching Gian-Luca.
“Schmidt!”
“Nun was!” Schmidt jumped as though frightened. “Oh, hallo! Is that you, Gian-Luca?”
Gian-Luca jingled the money in his pockets, then he slipped his arm into Schmidt’s. “Will you take me to see those girls?” said Gian-Luca, and he turned his face up to the lighted window.
“Ach so!” murmured Schmidt. “You make up your mind—come along then, I understand.”
Book II
I
I
Great changes had come to the Casa Boselli. It was now six years since that eventful day when Millo had ordered his first case of funghi. For six years now Gian-Luca had served him and meanwhile the Casa Boselli had prospered. A large plate-glass window had been recently added, and the lease of the next-door shop had been purchased. A green motor-van with the name in gold letters—“Casa Boselli”—painted large on its sides, might be seen any morning unloading its wares at the back doors of fashionable restaurants. Fabio was no longer permitted to serve; there were three young assistants for that. Obedient in all things to the wishes of Teresa, Fabio dressed himself neatly and wandered about in and out of the shop, empty-handed and foolish; sad too, missing his salami and cheeses, while Teresa sat in a businesslike office in the basement of the new shop next door.
The years were dealing lightly with Teresa; she had scarcely changed at all in appearance, nor had she softened towards life in general; one thing only could bring a smile now to her lips, and that was the success of some new business venture, and of such a venture she was thinking one morning as she sat at her crowded desk. The May sunshine filtered down through the thick, greenish skylight and partially illumined the room, but Teresa switched on her reading-lamp and pulled a sheaf of papers towards her.
“Duecento cinquanta sterline,” she murmured, “two hundred and fifty pounds—” then she stretched out a hand and groped for her passbook, “and five hundred pounds we have borrowed from the bank—that makes seven hundred and fifty.” She began making long calculations on the blotter. “And we save on the freight?” She considered a moment, then she opened a drawer and looked over some bills. “Ah,” she said smiling, “it is just as I thought, I am scarcely a centesimo out.”
Teresa, who had saved money all her life, had begun to spend recklessly of late. Thrifty to a fault, there yet lurked within her the gambler’s instinct—she was gambling in business, emboldened by recent successes. And now she was launching the greatest venture of her whole long business career, a venture hidden away out of sight in a room behind the new shop. It was nothing less than the making of pasta; the mixing and rolling and cutting and
