In the end, no doubt, a kind of exhaustion followed upon his
excitement. Questions and answers suspended themselves; and he
could only look up towards Ventirose, and dumbly wish that he
was there. The distance was so trifling--in five minutes he
could traverse it--the law seemed absurd and arbitrary, which
condemned him to sit apart, free only to look and wish.
It was in this condition of mind that Marietta found him, when
she came to announce dinner.
Peter gave himself a shake. The sight of the brown old woman,
with her homely, friendly face, brought him back to small
things, to actual things; and that, if it was n't a comfort,
was, at any rate, a relief.
"Dinner?" he questioned. "Do peris at the gates of Eden DINE?"
"The soup is on the table," said Marietta.
He rose, casting a last glance towards the castle.
Towers and battlements . . .
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes."
He repeated the lines in an undertone, and went in to dinner.
And then the restorative spirit of nonsense descended upon him.
"Marietta," he asked, "what is your attitude towards the
question of mixed marriages?"
Marietta wrinkled her brow.
"Mixed marriages? What is that, Signorino?"
"Marriages between Catholics and Protestants," he explained.
"Protestants?" Her brow was still a network. "What things are
they?"
"They are things--or perhaps it would be less invidious to say
people--who are not Catholics--who repudiate Catholicism as a
deadly and soul-destroying error."
"Jews?" asked Marietta.
"No--not exactly. They are generally classified as Christians.
But they protest, you know. Protesto, protestare, verb,
active, first conjugation. 'Mi pare che la donna protesta
troppo,' as the poet sings. They're Christians, but they
protest against the Pope and the Pretender."
"The Signorino means Freemasons," said Marietta.
"No, he does n't," said Peter. "He means Protestants."
"But pardon, Signorino," she insisted; "if they are not
Catholics, they must be Freemasons or Jews. They cannot be
Christians. Christian--Catholic: it is the same. All
Christians are Catholics."
"Tu quoque!" he cried. "You regard the terms as
interchangeable? I 've heard the identical sentiment similarly
enunciated by another. Do I look like a Freemason?"
She bent her sharp old eyes upon him studiously for a moment.
Then she shook her head.
"No," she answered slowly. "I do not think that the Signorino
looks like a Freemason."