Alessandra--"
Beppo's speech failed.

"What of your mistress?" said Merthyr.

"When she dies, my dear master, there's no one for me but the Madonna to
serve."

"Why should she die, silly fellow?"

"Because she never cries."

Merthyr was on the point of saying, "Why should she cry?" His heart was
too full, and he shrank from inquisitive shadows of the thing known to
him.

"Sit down at this caffe with me," he said. It's fine weather for March.
The troops will camp comfortably. Those Hungarians never require tents.
Did you see much sacking of villages last year?"

"Padrone, the Imperial command is always to spare the villages."

"That's humane."

"Padrone, yes; if policy is humanity."

"It's humanity not carried quite as far as we should wish it."

Beppo shrugged and said: "It won't leave much upon the conscience if we
kill them."

"Do you expect a rising?" said Merthyr.

"If the Ticino overflows, it will flood Milan," was the answer.

"And your occupation now is to watch the height of the water?"

"My occupation, padrone? I am not on the watch-tower." Beppo winked,
adding: "I have my occupation." He threw off the effort or pretence to be
discreet. "Master of my soul! this is my occupation. I drink coffee, but
I do not smoke, because I have to kiss a pretty girl, who means to object
to the smell of the smoke. Via! I know her! At five she draws me into the
house."

"Are you relating your amours to me, rascal?" Merthyr interposed.

"Padrone, at five precisely she draws me into the house. She is a German
girl. Pardon me if I make no war on women. Her name is Aennchen, which
one is able to say if one grimaces;--why not? It makes her laugh; and
German girls are amiable when one can make them laugh. 'Tis so that they
begin to melt. Behold the difference of races! I must kiss her to melt
her, and then have a quarrel. I could have it after the first, or the
fiftieth with an Italian girl; but my task will be excessively difficult
with a German girl, if I am compelled to allow myself to favour her with
one happy solicitation for a kiss, to commence with. We shall see. It is,
as my abstention from tobacco declares, an anticipated catastrophe."

"Long-worded, long-winded, obscure, affirmatizing by negatives,
confessing by implication!--where's the beginning and end of you, and
what's your meaning?" said Merthyr, who talked to him as one may talk to
an Italian servant.

"The contessa, my mistress, has enemies.