'What is it?' she asked, after a long pause, and rather unsteadily.
He understood that she was going back to the question she had asked him at first, but still he did not answer. She kept her eyes steadily on Saint Ursula while she spoke again.
'If it is not good-bye, what is it that is so hard to say?'
Angela moved a little and looked down at his bent head, for he spoke in an almost despairing tone. She thought she understood him at last.
'He will not hear of our marriage, now that I am a beggar,' she said, prompting him.
But Giovanni raised his face at once, and rather proudly.
'You are unjust to him,' he said. 'He is not changed. It is a very different matter. He has had a great misfortune, and has lost almost all he had, without much hope of recovering anything. We were very well off, and I should have had a right to marry you, though you had not a penny, if this had not happened. As it is, my father is left with nothing but his General's pension to support my mother. My brothers will both need help for years to come, for they are much younger than I am, and I must live on my pay if I mean to stay in the service.'
'Is that all?' Angela's voice trembled a little.
'I did not mean that,' she hastened to say, interrupting him, and there was a note of returning gladness in her voice. 'I meant to ask if that was all the bad news.'
'It is enough, surely, since it half ruins our lives! What right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me, since I have not enough for us to live on?'
Angela turned quite towards him now and repeated his own words.
'And what right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me? When you gave your word, you thought I had a great name and was heir to a splendid fortune. You were deceived. I am a "destitute foundling"--the lawyers have proved it, and the proof of their proofs is that I am obliged to accept the charity of my old governess, God bless her! If ever a man had a right to take back his word, you have. Take it, if you will. You are free!'
Giovanni stood up beside her, almost angry.
'Do you think I wanted your fortune?' he asked, a little pale under his tan.
Her lips were still parted in a smile after she had asked the question, and with the gesture of an older woman she tapped his arm half reproachfully. The colour came back to his brown face.