“Mr. Benevenuto,” I said, backing away from him, “please go away.”
I thought of what Miss Darling had said, that Italian men were not to be
played with. I had merely smiled at Benny, with what a volcanic result!
He was coming nearer and nearer to me, and he kept talking all the time,
in his soft, pleading way:
“Marion, I have love-a you from the first day I have look at you. You
look-a like my countrywomen, Marion. We will getta married. Soon I will
make plenty money. We will have maybe little house and little bebby.”
I could stand it no longer. He was only a boy after all, and somehow he
made me think of the little beggar boy I had pinched when I gave him the
bread and sugar. I pushed him away from me, and I said:
“Don’t talk such foolishness. I am old enough to be your mother.” I
think I was about three years older than he.
“No matter, Marion,” he said, “no matter. I do not care if you are so
old. I love-a you just same.”
I was sidling round along the wall, and now I had reached the door. I
ran down the stairs, and I did not stop till I reached the safety of
Miss Darling’s room.
“What on earth is the matter?” she cried, as I burst in.
Between laughter and tears I repeated the interview. She couldn’t help
laughing at me, especially when I told about the part of “the little
bebby.” Then she said:
“Well, we’ll get him out now, but you must never, never flirt with an
Italian. You’re apt to be killed if you do.”
Later in the evening Jimmy came. He was very quiet and queer for Jimmy,
and he sat down on my window sill, and held his head in his hands. When
I told him about Benevenuto, he looked up and said:
“The damn’ little rat. I’ll throw him out of the window.”
After a moment he said:
“Come over here, Marion, I want to tell you something.”