Carmella Commands
“No, not until I finish school. But sometime.”
“Dixon is a fine man, that is true.”
“I’m glad you think so, padre. Then you want me to marry him?”
“We shall see. We shall see.”
“I hope you’ll like it, because I’m going to do it.”
“Does he want you, little one?”
“He will. I even think he does now, a little.”
Tommaso smiled.
“Now to teach me to speak the English,” he said, reflecting that it was her teaching that had enabled him to discuss her with Dixon the night before. He took pride in the interview.
Dixon, on his part, knew well that he was in love with Carmella—in love with her as a child; in love with the woman he felt sure she would be. Moreover, she was already approaching the age when it was not uncommon for girls of Little Italy to marry. There were many brides of sixteen, though it meant bewildered parental visits to the license bureau.
Dixon, however, had no such intention. He himself was slightly over twenty-one; he would be twenty-five when Carmella finished high school. He intended that she should have those years in school while he was establishing himself as a business man.
Meanwhile, Tommaso’s answer had given him the right to feel like an older brother—the right to help her when he could.
Before school opened that autumn Carmella had
[269]
