"Oh dear me!" Uncle Piero exclaimed. "How many difficulties! But after all, are they or are they not husband and wife?—Well, well," he added, seeing that his sister was beginning to grow excited, "do just as you like!"
Instead of the young couple the maid appeared, bringing the cake and the bottle, and told the engineer that Signorina Luisina begged him to come out to the terrace for a moment.
"Now that something good is coming at last, you send me outside!" said the engineer. He jested with his usual serenity of spirit, perhaps because he did not fully realize his sister's serious condition, perhaps because of his naturally pacific attitude towards all that was inevitable.
He went out to the terrace where Luisa and Franco were waiting for him.
"Listen, Uncle," his niece began. "My husband says that his grandmother will surely discover everything at once; that he will not be able to remain at Cressogno any longer; that if Mamma were stronger we might all go to your house at Oria, but, unfortunately, that is not possible as matters stand at present. So he thinks we might arrange a room here—any way to get it ready quickly. We had thought of poor Papa's study. What do you say to this plan?"
"Hm!" ejaculated Uncle Piero, who was slow to take up with new ideas. "It seems to me a very hasty resolution. You will be incurring expense and turning the house upside down, for an arrangement which can only be temporary."
His one idea was to have the whole family at Oria, and this expedient did not suit him. He feared that if the young people once settled down at Castello they would remain there. Luisa used every argument to persuade him that there was no other way, and that neither the outlay nor the trouble would be great. On leaving home her husband would go directly to Lugano, and bring back what few pieces of furniture were absolutely indispensable. Uncle Piero asked if Franco could not take up his quarters at Oria, remaining there until such a time as she and her mother could join him. "Oh, Uncle!" Luisa exclaimed. Had she known about the bell she would have been still more astonished by a similar proposal. But sometimes this good man had artless ideas of this sort, at which his sister smiled. Luisa had no difficulty in finding arguments against his plan for banishing Franco, and she used them with warmth. "Enough!" said Uncle Piero calmly, though he was not convinced; and he arched his wide-spread arms with the gesture of the Dominus vobiscum, more charitably inclined, more ready to enfold poor humanity in a tender embrace than before. "Fiat! Oh, by the way," he added, turning to Franco, "how about money?"
Franco shivered, much embarrassed.
"You know he is our father!" his wife said.
"Not by any means your father," Uncle Piero observed placidly. "Not by any means, but what is mine is yours; so I shall line your pockets as well as my means will permit."