Ragna had followed every word, every gesture, with a sickening horror; she had imagined some tale of annoyance, but not this, and the leer of the portrait on the wall seemed to confirm every word of the girl's tale.
The girl threw herself impulsively on her knees, beside her mistress and lifted the hem of her skirt to her lips.
"Signora mia," she moaned, "you are too good, you are an angel! Any other lady would have thrown me into the street without hearing me out."
"Hush, my poor girl," Ragna interrupted, "you are a victim and to be pitied. How should I blame you, since your wrong is partly my fault, I should have seen, should have guessed--"
"Signora, don't worry about me, I have had trouble before, as you know, and no one can blame me for what is not my fault since you don't."
Ragna looked at the girl in surprise at the simplicity with which she accepted the _fait accompli_, though it was characteristic of her and her race. She could see no reason for weeping over spilt milk, hers was the rational and childlike philosophy of the people--"_cosa fatta capo ha_," and a shrug of the shoulders for the inevitable. The one thought is to "rimediare" in the present. This state of mind appeared to Ragna so entirely enviable and sent her back over so long a train of thought in which she viewed her own experience for the first time with new eyes, and perceiving the uselessness of her futile beating against the bars of her fate, that with difficulty she brought herself back to a sense of the present. She remembered that the maid had not answered her last question.
"Tell me, Carolina, since you did not come to me at once, what has obliged you to speak now?"
"Signora," said the girl passionately, "the Padrone looks at me from under his eyebrows, in a way I don't like--I said I was not afraid but I am. I hate him, I can't breathe the same air with him, and before he does anything to me,--or before I go mad and kill him, it is better for me to go."
Ragna stroked the maid's hair absent-mindedly; the Venetian had been with her more than five years now; it would be hard to part with her, for she was entirely devoted to her mistress and the children, especially Mimmo, but it was clearly impossible to keep her longer. Ragna sighed.