"Everything! I do believe she'd die, or disappear, or drown herself if
anything happened to that boy."
"And Mr. Rossi?"
"He's been a second father to the boy ever since the young monkey was
born."
"Well, Joseph must come here sometimes, and let me try and be a second
mother to him too.... What is he saying now?"
Joseph had dragged down his father's head to whisper something in his
ear.
"He says he's frightened of your big porter downstairs."
"Frightened of him! He is only a man, my precious! Tell him you are a
little Roman boy, and he'll have to let you up. Will you remember? You
will? That's right! By-bye!"
Before going to sleep that night, Roma switched on the light that hung
above her head and read her letter again. She had been hoarding it up
for that secret hour, and now she was alone with it, and all the world
was still.
"Saturday Night.
"MY DEAR ONE,--Your sweet letter brought me the intoxication of
delight, and the momentous matter you speak of is under way. It is
my turn to be ashamed of all the great to-do I made about the
obstacles to our union when I see how courageous you can be. Oh,
how brave women are--every woman who ever marries a man! To take
her heart into her hands, and face the unknown in the fate of
another being, to trust her life into his keeping, knowing that if
he falls she falls too, and will never be the same again! What
man could do it? Not one who was ever born into the world. Yet
some woman does it every day, promising some man that she
will--let me finish your quotation-"'Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and
spirit In thy hands.' "Don't think I am too much troubled about the Minghelli matter,
and yet it is pitiful to think how merciless the world can be even
in the matter of a man's name. A name is only a word, but it is
everything to the man who bears it--honour or dishonour, poverty
or wealth, a blessing or a curse. If it is a good name, everybody
tries to take it away from him, but if it's a bad name and he has
attempted to drop it, everybody tries to fix it on him afresh.
"The name I was compelled to leave behind me when I returned to
Italy was a bad name in nothing except that it was the name of my
father, and if the spies and ferrets of authority ever fix it upon
me God only knows what mischief they may do. But one thing I
know--that if they do fix my father's name upon me, and bring me
to the penalties which the law has imposed on it, it will not be
by help of my darling, my beloved, my brave, brave girl with the
heart of gold.