"What has happened?" Franco whispered. Uncle Piero motioned to them to withdraw from the terrace to the loggia, whither he followed them. Then the poor old man spread wide his arms as one crucified, and said in a sad but firm voice—
"I am dismissed."
Franco and Luisa stared at him for a moment, dazed. Then Franco burst out: "Oh, Uncle, Uncle!" and fell upon his neck. Seeing her father's action and the expression on her mother's face Maria fell to sobbing. Luisa tried to pacify her, but she herself, strong woman that she was, felt the tears rising in her throat.
Seated on the sofa in the hall Uncle Piero told them that the Imperial and Royal Delegate of Como had sent for him to tell him that the search which had been carried out in his house at Oria had given painful and unexpected results, but what these results were he had positively refused to state. The Delegate had added that the authorities had at first intended to take legal proceedings against him, but that in consideration of his long and faithful services to the government, it had been decided to remove him from office instead. Uncle Piero had insisted upon knowing the nature of the accusations brought against him, but the Delegate had dismissed him without an answer.
"And what is to be done now?" said Franco.
"What is to be done——" Uncle Piero was silent for a moment, and then pronounced that sacramental phrase of unknown origin which he and his fellow tarocchi players were in the habit of repeating when the game was hopelessly lost. "We are done brown, O Queen!"
A long silence ensued, which was finally broken by Luisa, who cast herself upon her uncle's neck, murmuring: "Oh, Uncle, Uncle! I am afraid it is our fault." She was thinking of the grandmother, but Uncle Piero thought she was accusing Franco and herself of some imprudence.
"Listen, my dear friends," said he good-naturedly, but in his tone there was a hidden spirit of reproof, "these discourses are useless. Now that the evil is done we must think of bread. You may count upon this house, upon some modest savings which bring me in about four svanziche a day, and upon two more mouths to feed, mine and Cia's. Let us hope you will not have to feed mine long." Franco and Luisa protested. "Better so, better so!" Uncle Piero exclaimed, waving his arms as if in contempt of unreasonable sentimentality. "Live well, and die in good time. That is the best rule. I have performed the first part, now I must perform the second. Meanwhile send some water to my room, and open my bag. You will find ten meat croquettes, which Signora Carolina dell'Agria insisted upon giving me. You see we are not so badly off, after all!"
Whereupon Uncle Piero rose and went out at the drawing-room door with a firm step, and even when his back was turned, displaying a head and body held erect, and an unruffled serenity like that of an ancient philosopher.
Franco, with knitted brows and arms crossed upon his breast, was standing motionless on the edge of the terrace, and looking towards Cressogno. If at that moment he had had a bundle of Delegates, Commissaries, police-agents, and spies between his teeth, he would have ground them so hard that all these functionaries would have been reduced to pulp.