"Something honest, I mean."
"What?"
"Well, something not criminal," she amended, chuckling again. "I'm sorry to seem to know you so well," she added.
"Oh, we know one another pretty well," said he with a nod. "Never the jam without the powder from you."
"But always the jam," said old Maria. "And you'll find the world a good deal like your aunt, Sandro."
An odd half-cunning half-eager gleam shot across his eyes.
"A man finds the world what he makes it," he said. He rose, came and stood over her, and went on, laughing. "But the devil makes an aunt once and for all, and won't let one touch his handiwork."
"You can touch her savings, though!"
He blazed out into a sudden defiance. "Oh, refuse if you like. I can manage without you. You're not essential to me."
She smiled, her thin lips setting in a wry curve. Now and then it seemed hard that there could be no affection between her and the one being whom the course of events plainly suggested for her love. But, as Sandro said, they knew one another very well. In the result she felt entitled to assume no airs of superiority; he had not been a dutiful or a grateful nephew, she had not been a devoted or a patient aunt; as she looked back, she was obliged to remember one or two occasions when he had driven or betrayed her into a severity of which she did not willingly think. This reflection dictated the words with which she met his outburst.