"It is very good of you to say so," laughed the lady.

"No--it is the truth," said Annunziata.

"But is it not good to tell the truth?" the lady asked.

"No," said Annunziata. "It is only a duty." And again she shook her
head, slowly, darkly, with an effect of philosophic melancholy. "That is
very strange and very hard," she pointed out. "If you do not do that
which is your duty, it is bad, and you are punished. But if you do do
it, that is not good,--it is only what you ought to do, and you are not
rewarded." And she fetched her breath in the saddest of sad little
sighs. Then, briskly covering her cheerfulness, "And you speak English,
besides," she said.

"Oh?" wondered the lady. "Are you a clairvoyante? How do you know that I
speak English?"

"My friend Prospero told me so," said Annunziata.

"Your friend Prospero?" the lady repeated. "You quote your friend
Prospero very often. Who is your friend Prospero?"

"He is a signore," said Annunziata. "He has seen you, he has seen your
form, in the garden and in the olive wood."

"Oh," said the lady.

"And I suppose he must have heard you speak English," Annunziata added.