waiting for a reply, went into the little barn full of hay, to bed.
The meaning of the Colonel's utterance was self-evident. The young
wife replied by an indescribable gesture, expressing all the annoyance
she could not feel at seeing her thralldom thus flaunted without human
decency, and the offence to her dignity as a woman, and to her
husband. But there was, too, in the rigid setting of her features and
the tight knitting of her brows a sort of presentiment; perhaps she
foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her place.

"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch
of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'

"The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than
the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the Italian
language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,
concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength of
will. Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to
the Colonel.

"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at
them all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'_Tu ridi?_
--you laugh?' said the husband.

"'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, 'I
confess that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if
you are not satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you
satisfaction.'

"'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.