The Matchmaker Read Online Free PDF Page A

planted herself in their path.
    “Hul-lo!” she exclaimed with such smiling and delighted surprise that both men paused, smiling too.
    “’Ul-lo,” they said, looking down at her.
    “Bambina,” added Emilio, turning to Alda, who now drew near. His eyes moved boldly yet wistfully over her shape, which had the roundness natural to a woman in the early thirties who has borne several children, but Fabrio, after a glance at her face, turned away his head. Alda noticed his chestnut hair and blue eyes with interest, for she had supposed all Italians to be dark.
    “Nice day—good,” she said, with her friendly smile, pointing at the sun.
    “Yes. Good-a. You-a bambina?” said Emilio, and began to feel in his pocket.
    “Yes. Meg,” said Alda, pointing this time at her daughter.
    “Ah-ha. Meg-g.” Emilio nodded. “I show-a Meg a little—a pret-ty——” and before Alda’s gradually widening eyes he was beginning to withdraw a bundle of limp fur from his pocket when Fabrio, saying something quickly in Italian, pushed it back into its hiding-place.
    “Oh—thank you so much, I’m afraid we must be going now,” said Alda hastily, taking Meg’s hand and beginning to retreat, “Good-bye,” and she directed a special smile at the other Italian, the “nice” one, as she now thought of him, who did not return it; she just caught a glimpse of a sullen face as he walked away.
    “You live-a at villa?” said Emilio, moving a few steps after her. “We, him and me, Fabrio Caetano, Emilio Rossi, at Naylor Farm.”
    “I expect we shall see you again, then,” said Alda.
    “You give-a cigarette,” said Emilio coaxingly, still following her. “We have no cig-arette; we only——” he rapidly opened and shut his ten fingers three times in front of her face, leaving five fingers extended in the air. “For a week. No good. You give-a cigarette?”
    Here Fabrio, who was half-way towards the ditch where the spades were, turned back, as though waiting, and called out something. Emilio laughed and shrugged his shoulders, then, exclaiming “Buon’giorno, signora,” he followed his friend.
    “Was it a dead bunny in that man’s possick?” demanded Meg, the instant she and her mother were alone.
    “I’m afraid so, darling.”
    “Oh, poor little thing. Why wouldn’t you let it see me, Mudder?”
    “You didn’t want to see it, did you, Meg?”
    “Yes, Meg did want.”
    “You shall next time, dear,” soothed Alda, reflecting with complacence upon the advantages of having three children; the variety of response was in itself an endless entertainment. Louise would have shuddered for the rest of the morning over that glimpse of fur, while Jenny would only have inquired whether the Italians were going to cook it for their dinner.
    Then they turned their steps homeward, for there was still much packing and arranging to do on this, their last day at Pagets. Jenny and Louise were there now, fitting their especial treasures into the large old suitcases in which they had travelled for the past three years, but Alda was always conscious of a desire, sometimes subdued and sometimes imperative, to wander out into the open air and to-day, which promised to be one of the last fine days of the month, she had not even attempted to resist it.
    As they were lost to sight along the rutted track through the woods, Fabrio said angrily to Emilio:
    “Why must you beg from her?”
    Emilio sat down and pulled the rabbit out of his pocket and began to skin it deftly with a razor blade set in a wooden holder.
    “She has a pretty face, and she’s as good for a cigarette as any other bit of skirt. Why shouldn’t I?”
    “I won’t beg from anyone.”
    “Oh yes! You won’t beg! Who let me pay for his beer yesterday?”
    “I had no money, as you well know.” Fabrio’s voice rose and there was colour on his high cheekbones.
    “All right, all right.” Emilio pushed some billets of wood across with his foot. “Get the fire going, will