"Mercy on us! Eight or ten glasses!" grumbled the housekeeper, who had caught her most temperate master's words of boastful intemperance, as she came in. "Eight or ten fiddlesticks!"
She had come to announce Don Giuseppe Costabarbieri, whose hollow but jolly voice was just then heard in the hall, saying heartily, "Deo gratias." Then the red and wrinkled face, the lively eyes, and the grey hair of the gentle priest appeared.
"We are discussing philosophy, Don Giuseppe," said Luisa when greetings had been exchanged. "Come here and let us have your valuable opinion."
Don Guiseppe scratched his head, and then turning it slightly towards the engineer, with the expression of one who desires something for which he hardly dares to ask, gave utterance to this flower of his philosophical opinions.
"Wouldn't a little game of primero be better?"
Franco and Uncle Piero, who were only too glad to escape from Gilardoni's philosophy, sat merrily down to the little table with the priest.
As soon as he and Luisa were alone, the Professor said softly—
"The Marchesa left yesterday."
Luisa, who had taken Maria upon her lap, pressed her lips to the child's neck passionately.
"Perhaps," continued Gilardoni, who had never known how to read in the human heart, or to touch its chords correctly, "perhaps sometime—it is only three years, yet—perhaps the day may come when she will yield."