Here she had laid aside her pen in despair. It was the thought of Bobby that had come to her. How tragic and ridiculous to think of giving her son two fathers besides the real father who had died when he was a baby! Yes, this thought was nothing less than hideous. The absurdity in it was grim as the risus sardonicus. And yet—and yet—— Like poor Desdemona she perceived here a divided duty. This duty to her son was tremendous—yet was there not also a duty towards the man who had loved her for long years, whom she had told that she loved in return? Perhaps, when Bobby had grown up—— Yes, that would make things different. But could any man be constant for all those added years—had she a right to ask such constancy? And even then—to take a third husband! The words of Christ to the woman of Samaria came back to her: ".... Thou hast well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband."... Five husbands or three ... what real difference was there? She felt stunned with self-abasement and misery. A voice within her kept crying: "Too late! too late!" But when she thought of her life without him it seemed vain and empty. Even the thought of her son could not fill that void.
Nano Amaldi's injuries proved far less serious than was at first believed. Within ten days after his accident he was able to travel, and he and Marco went together to stop with their mother on the Brenta, near Venice—where she had taken a friend's villa for the months of September and October.
From this place Amaldi wrote to Sophy, asking her if it would not be possible for her to come to Venice during the autumn. His mother longed to see her, and people could hardly talk if they met occasionally under such circumstances. He also told her in this letter that Barti, the family lawyer, had gone to Switzerland to inquire about the formalities necessary for the divorce.
Sophy had intended going to Italy in September. Now it seemed to her that there could be no objection to her choosing Venice as a stopping place. She longed to talk with the old Marchesa almost as much as she longed to see Amaldi. To talk with his mother would lift some of the load of doubt and pain from her heart, she thought.
But when she mentioned this plan to her cousin, Sue looked anxious. She was thinking of Lady Wychcote—of what she might think and say when she heard that Sophy was going to Italy. Her native shrewdness would lead her to surmise something very like the truth, Sue felt sure, while her dislike for Sophy would cause her to put the worst construction on it.
However, to her great relief, Lady Wychcote took the news of the projected trip to Venice with composure. She was even affable about it and said in a letter on the subject that she envied Sophy the pleasure of seeing Venice for the first time, and of being out of England during September. But as Susan pondered this letter afterwards, something in its very affability made her nervous. It struck her as odd that Lady Wychcote, after having called Sophy's attention so insistently to the danger of possible gossip about her and Amaldi, and now knowing that there actually had been gossip on the subject, should suddenly hear without protest of any kind that Sophy intended going to Italy. If Susan had been aware of the fact that Lady Wychcote also knew of Sophy's visit to Amaldi's lodgings, she would have returned to America rather than have gone with her to Venice.
Lady Wychcote did know of it, however, and from a sure source—from her own brother, Colonel Bollingham, a retired and grouchy old Anglo-Indian, who had always taken Sophy at his sister's valuation and had no more love for her than had her ladyship.
He had chanced to be passing on the other side of the street when Sophy and Susan got out of their cab before Amaldi's lodgings. His sister had talked with him about her fears in that regard. The accident, of which he had read that morning, caused him to put two and two together—making a round dozen, after the custom of his type of arithmetician.
"The little hussy...." he muttered, as the two figures disappeared within a house opposite. "'Clarges Street'.... So it was, b'gad!"