as in Naples five nights of the seven; the other
two we sighed apart.

"At first it was the oldest story in literature--Eden plus Eve. The
place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it was heaven itself.
So for a little; then one night, a Monday night, Faustina burst out
crying in the boat; and sobbed her story as we drifted without mishap
by the mercy of the Lord. And that was almost as old a story as the
other.

"She was engaged--what! Had I never heard of it? Did I mean to upset
the boat? What was her engagement beside our love? 'Niente, niente,'
crooned Faustina, sighing yet smiling through her tears. No, but what
did matter was that the man had threatened to stab her to the
heart--and would do it as soon as look at her--that I knew.

"I knew it merely from my knowledge of the Neapolitans, for I had no
idea who the man might be. I knew it, and yet I took this detail
better than the fact of the engagement, though now I began to laugh at
both. As if I was going to let her marry anybody else! As if a hair
of her lovely head should be touched while I lived to protect her! I
had a great mind to row away to blazes with her that very night, and
never go near the vineyard again, or let her either. But we had not a
lira between us at the time, and only the rags in which we sat barefoot
in the boat. Besides, I had to know the name of the animal who had
threatened a woman, and such a woman as this.

"For a long time she refused to tell me, with splendid obduracy; but I
was as determined as she; so at last she made conditions. I was not to
go and get put in prison for sticking a knife into him--he wasn't worth
it--and I did promise not to stab him in the back. Faustina seemed
quite satisfied, though a little puzzled by my manner, having herself
the racial tolerance for cold steel; and next moment she had taken away
my breath. 'It is Stefano,' she whispered, and hung her head.

"And well she might, poor thing! Stefano, of all creatures on God's
earth--for her!

"Bunny, he was a miserable little undersized
wretch--ill-favored--servile--surly--and second only to his master in
bestial cunning and hypocrisy. His face was enough for me; that was
what I read in it, and I don't often make mistakes. He was Corbucci's
own confidential body-servant, and that alone was enough to damn him in
decent eyes: always came out first on the Saturday with the spese, to
have all ready for his master and current mistres