I must
break my fast, so must you. By the time we have done, the Sagrestia may
be ready for us. Observe also that in spending the night in that place I
am obliging you, for I don't at all see why we should do it."
She searched my face with those grey eyes of hers, hunting my raillery
out. The thing above all which she dreaded was to be laughed at. She
never laughed herself, except bitterly, in anger, and hated the
indulgence. Suspecting still what she failed to find, she fell in with
my desire to eat, though she must have thought it preposterous, and me a
madman to have it. She could never understand my attachment to custom,
and never think of more than one thing at a time. Just now she was
engaged in hiding me from justice--to succeed in which task she would
have sat still for an eternity and gone without a thousand meals. What
an outcry she must have had ready for me--and how she must have loved
her hard taskmaster! She did violence to all her feelings, fell in with
my desire at once.
"Naturally, Don Francis, you must eat. Naturally, I must eat. Naturally,
by the time we have finished, the Sagrestia will be open. Very good, Don
Francis. But as to spending the night in the Sagrestia, shall I be
impertinent if I tell you that by this time there is not a locanda in
Florence that has not got a full and exact description of you and me,
and not a landlord among them that would not hand you over for two
baiocchi?"
"How do you know that, my dear?" I asked.
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