"Yes," said he. "I refer you to my sponsors in baptism. A
regular, true blue moderate High Churchman and Tory, British
and Protestant to the backbone, with 'Frustrate their Popish
tricks' writ large all over me. You have never by any chance
married a Protestant yourself?" he asked.

"No, Signorino. I have never married any one. But it was not
for the lack of occasions. Twenty, thirty young men courted me
when I was a girl. But--mica!--I would not look at them. When
men are young they are too unsteady for husbands; when they are
old they have the rheumatism."

Admirably philosophised," he approved. But it sometimes
happens that men are neither young nor old. There are men of
thirty-five--I have even heard that there are men of forty.
What of them?"

"There is a proverb, Signorino, which says, Sposi di quarant'
anni son mai sempre tiranni," she informed him.

"For the matter of that," he retorted, "there is a proverb
which says, Love laughs at locksmiths."

"Non capisco," said Marietta.

"That's merely because it's English," said he. "You'd
understand fast enough if I should put it in Italian. But I
only quoted it to show the futility of proverbs. Laugh at
locksmiths, indeed! Why, it can't even laugh at such an