"We shall see; we shall see, my love!"

"You do not love me if you will not promise."

"Oh, if that is all, my love, I will promise never to lay a finger on
him until you are actually married to some one else. But then--"
Gianbattista made the gesture which means driving the knife into an
enemy.

"Then you may do anything you please," answered Lucia, with a laugh. "He
will never make me marry any one but you. You know that, my heart!"

"In that case we ought to be married very soon," argued the young man.
"We need not live here, you know. Indeed, it would be out of the
question. We will take one of those pretty little places in the new
quarter--"

"That is so far away," interrupted the girl.

"Yes, but there is the tramway, and there are omnibuses. It only takes a
quarter of an hour."

"But you would be so far from me all day, my love. I could not run into
the studio at all hours, and you would not come home for dinner. Oh! I
could not bear it!"

"Very well, we will try and find something near here," said
Gianbattista, yielding the point. "We will get a little apartment near
the Minerva, where there is sun."