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otti, upon hearing this allusion to the engineer, was thrilled and amazed, and began preparing, with the most exquisitely delicate touch, to draw out this secret concerning Signor Giacomo and Ribera. "Certainly," said he, "you did wrong." Silence on Signor Giacomo's part. Pasotti insisted. "You did very wrong." But just then Signora Barborin entered, smiling genially, and bearing a tray with the bottle and glasses. The wine was of a dark red, shot through with ruby lights, and Signor Giacomo contemplated it if not yet tenderly, at least benevolently. This wine had an aroma of austere virtue, and Signor Giacomo smelt of it affectionately, gazed at it with emotion, and then smelt of it again. This wine had that mellow richness which fills both palate and soul with its flavour, and indeed it possessed exactly that honest and pure tartness that its aroma pre-announced, and Signor Giacomo sipped it and wished it were not liquid and evanescent, tasted it, smacked his lips over it, and rolled it under his tongue. When, from time to time, he rested his glass on the little table, neither his hand nor his languid gaze were withdrawn from it. "Poor Engineer! Poor Ribera!" Pasotti exclaimed. "He is a most upright man, but ..." And as he pulled and pulled the unlucky Signor Giacomo began to rise to the hook and the line. "I myself did not wish it," he said. "'Twas he made me go--'Come along,' said he. 'Why do you not wish to go? There will be no harm done. The thing is honest.' 'Yes!' I answered, 'so it seems to me also, but all this secrecy?' 'On account of the grandmother,' he replied. 'But then,' I asked, 'what sort of a figure shall you and I cut?' 'We are just a couple of simpletons!' he answered, with that way of his--honest, old-fashioned soul that he is,--that always gets round me. 'I will go,' said I." Here he paused. Pasotti waited a while, and then gave the line a cautious jerk. "The trouble is," said he, "that the story leaked out at Castello." "Yes, Sir, and I was sure it would. The family and the engineer might keep the secret, and of course I should never speak, but the priest and the sacristan would surely talk." The priest? The sacristan? Ah! at last Pasotti understood. He staggered! He had not expected such a tremendous disclosure. He filled the unhappy Signor Giacomo's glass, and had little difficulty in getting all the particulars of the wedding out of him. Then he tried to find out what
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