"I cannot detain you. May I think that we have now an interest in common?"
"Oh, indeed yes; but—but—your daughter! How can I dream that one so beautiful, so peerless, will confirm the hope you have extended to me?"
"The daughter of an Italian is brought up to consider that it is a father's right to dispose of her hand."
"But the heart?"
"/Cospetto!/" said the Italian, true to his infamous notions as to the sex, "the heart of a girl is like a convent,—the holier the cloister, the more charitable the door."
CHAPTER XII.
Randal had scarcely left the house before Mrs. Riccabocca, who was affectionately anxious in all that concerned Violante, rejoined her husband.
"I like the young man very well," said the sage,—"very well indeed. I find him just what I expected, from my general knowledge of human nature; for as love ordinarily goes with youth, so modesty usually accompanies talent. He is young, ergo, he is in love; he has talent, ergo, he is modest, modest and ingenuous."
"And you think not in any way swayed by interest in his affections?"
"Quite the contrary; and to prove him the more, I have not said a word as to the worldly advantages which, in any case, would accrue to him from an alliance with my daughter. In any case: for if I regain my country, her fortune is assured; and if not, I trust" (said the poor exile, lifting his brow with stately and becoming pride) "that I am too well aware of my child's dignity, as well as my own, to ask any one to marry her to his own worldly injury."