CHAPTER XVIII
FAVORITA DRIVES A BARGAIN
As the winter progressed, Favorita's temper showed so little improvement that those whose duty brought them in contact with her at the theatre were on the verge of resigning their posts. Her dresser had a thoroughly cowed expression; her manager consumed more black cigars than were good for him; the corps de ballet had hysterics singly and indignation councils en masse. In fact, the call-boy, who seemed to enjoy tormenting her, was the only member of the company who took her rages cheerfully.
Finally even Giovanni became uneasy; a well-bred woman could be counted on in given circumstances to do thus and so, but Favorita was of lowest peasant birth: her people were of the mountain districts, so primitive in thought and habit that her early training had taught her obedience to nothing higher than impulse. Superficially, she submitted to the dictates of civilization, just as a half-wild animal submits to the control of his trainer. And in a very real sense Giovanni occupied, in relation to her, the trainer's position. He was the force that held her in check; but though to the audience of the world he appeared perfectly at ease, a definite apprehensiveness underlay his seeming composure.
Matters at last came to a crisis. Giovanni was about to leave the palace one morning a day or two after the Masco dinner, when a neatly dressed woman passed him on the grand stairway. She was wearing a thick veil, but he had an eye for outline and he knew that there was only one woman in Rome with just that half-floating lightness of movement. At once he blocked her way.
She was forced to halt; but her feet did not stand quite still, and there was an effect of briefly suspended motion in her attitude, as though she sought a chance to dart past him.
"Good-morning, signorina!" Giovanni's urbanity was for the benefit of the footmen. For a few seconds there was a straightening of her figure; poised for flight, she held her head a little to one side as she swiftly scanned his face.
Giovanni dropped his voice. "I was just on my way to see you. Come, cara mia," he said persuasively. "I have something I want to talk over with you—it is impossible here with lackeys listening to everything we may say. Come, dear."
She looked at him a moment, wavering, then shrugged her shoulders. "Very well," she said, and descended the stairs at his side. They crossed the wide hall, and she stopped to gaze about it in wonder and curiosity, even though she did not appreciate the splendor of its proportions. The great baldachino, of blue and silver, surmounting the Sansevero arms, held her attention.