"Eh!—the tousin (little fellow) has adopted me for his Nonna!" she added, laughing again the next instant, as Bobby hauled himself up by her fan-chain and tried to pull off her bonnet, saying:
"Take off! Tay wiv Bobby!"
As for Sophy, if she had not fallen in love with Amaldi, she had certainly fallen in love with his mother. The feeling was mutual. The Marchesa had had two sons but no daughter. She had always longed for a little girl. Now she thought that she would like to have had a daughter as much like Sophy as possible. And, as this thought came to her, it brought another less agreeable.
The sad destiny of her Marco made the Marchesa very lenient in facing certain problems, though she was essentially a woman of broad, indulgent views. Since twenty-six (he was now thirty-one) he had lived like a widower whom some mistaken vow has cut off from re-marrying. Not that the Marchesa deceived herself with the credulity of the average Anglo-Saxon mother in such cases. She did not for one moment think that her son had led the life of an ascetic during this enforced widowhood. Light liaisons she knew well there had been; but Marco was not a sensualist. Such flitting fires could never really warm or console him. And as she looked now at Sophy, thinking how pleasant it would be to have such a daughter, she also realised that this lovely, tall girl, with her spellbound looking grey eyes, and sensitive, romantic mouth, was the very type of woman to appeal to Marco with the threefold lure of spirit, mind, and flesh. Though he had spoken much of Sophy to his mother, since his return from England, with frank admiration and compassion for her sad fate in being married to such a man as Chesney, he had not given the slightest impression of being amoureux d'elle. But there came over the Marchesa a strong prescience of danger—of something to be guarded against. Should Marco see too much of Mrs. Chesney, should he become "in love" with her, why, then there was here no passing liaison to be considered, but something of the nature of tragedy. Not only was Marco bound by his disastrous marriage, but here was a woman doubly bound—not only by marriage, but by motherhood. A bad mother may make an enchanting mistress, but a bad mother will never make a true wife. The Marchesa knew her Marco well. She knew that, should he love a woman of Sophy's type, he would not want her for a mistress, but for a wife. That was what love—the one big, crowning love—would mean to Marco. Now if in future he should love this woman and she him, and should give up her son for him—she would not be what his love had imagined. If she should not give up her son—his love must burn out in bitterness.
Yes, she must watch; she must be wise as many serpents and harmless as a flock of doves; but she must also be prepared, at the first sign of real danger, to give Marco a word of serious warning. This action on her part would have all the more weight with him as she rarely, almost never, interfered in his personal affairs.
And all the time that she was thus reflecting, she smoked Sophy's gold-tipped cigarettes and chatted pleasantly.
Sophy heard with delight that the Marchesa was returning to the Lake the next afternoon by the same train on which she also was going.
She was early at the station. It thrilled her to read the placards with such lovely, well-known names on them. Como!—They passed that sign on their way to the carriages bound for Lago Maggiore. It seemed very odd to see that name of romance written upon a railway carriage.
Amaldi and his mother joined her shortly. As they settled down comfortably in the queer little carriage, Amaldi bought copies of the leading Milan papers and handed them in through the window. To Sophy's surprise, when he entered the carriage a few minutes later, he laid a fresh copy of Harper's on the seat beside her, smiling at her astonished look.