Padrone, I devote myself to her
service."

"By making love to a lady's maid?"

"Padrone, a rat is not born to find his way up the grand staircase. She
has enemies. One of them was the sublime Barto Rizzo--admirable--though I
must hate him. He said to his wife: 'If a thing happens to me, stab to
the heart the Countess Alessandra Ammiani.'"

"Inform me how you know that?" said Merthyr.

Beppo pointed to his head, and Merthyr smiled. To imagine, invent, and
believe, were spontaneous with Beppo when has practical sagacity was not
on the stretch. He glanced at the caffe clock.

"Padrone, at eleven to-night shall I see you here? At eleven I shall come
like a charged cannon. I have business. I have seen my mistress's blood!
I will tell you: this German girl lets me know that some one detests my
mistress. Who? I am off to discover. But who is the damned creature? I
must coo and kiss, while my toes are dancing on hot plates, to find her
out. Who is she? If she were half Milan . . ."

His hands waved in outline the remainder of the speech, and he rose, but
sat again. He had caught sight of the spy, Luigi Saracco, addressing the
signor Antonio-Pericles in his carriage. Pericles drove on. The horses
presently turned, and he saluted Merthyr.

"She has but one friend in Milan: it is myself," was his introductory
remark. "My poor child! my dear Powys, she is the best--'I cannot sing to
you to-day, dear Pericles'--she said that after she had opened her eyes;
after the first mist, you know. She is the best child upon earth. I could
wish she were a devil, my Powys. Such a voice should be in an iron body.
But she has immense health. The doctor, who is also mine, feels her
pulse. He assures me it goes as Time himself, and Time, my friend, you
know, has the intention of going a great way. She is good: she is too
good. She makes a baby of Pericles, to whom what is woman? Have I not the
sex in my pocket? Her husband, he is a fool, ser." Pericles broke
thundering into a sentence of English, fell in love with it, and resumed
in the same tongue: "I--it is I zat am her guard, her safety. Her
husband--oh! she must marry a young man, little donkey zat she is! We
accept it as a destiny, my Powys. And he plays false to her. Good; I do
not object. But, imagine in your own mind, my Powys--instead of passion,
of rage, of tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do you, hein? sink it
will come out,"--Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle smile askew,--