"Why should I fight you?" he inquired, in some astonishment. "You strike me as a very peaceable person indeed."
"Diavolo! do you expect me to stand quietly and hear you call my boy a scoundrel? What do you take me for, signore? Do you know that I am the last of the Conti Grandi, and as noble as any of you, and as fit to fight, though my hair is gray?"
"I knew, indeed, that one member of that illustrious family survived in Rome," he answered, gravely, "but I was not aware that you were he. I am glad to make your acquaintance, and I sincerely wish that you were the father of the young man who has married my daughter. If you were, I would be ready to arrange matters." He looked at me searchingly.
"Unfortunately, I am not any relation of his," I answered. "His father and mother were peasants on my estate of Serveti, when it still was mine. They died when he was a baby, and I took care of him and educated him."
"Yes, he is well educated," reflected the count, "for I examined him myself. Let us talk no more about fighting. You are quite sure that the marriage is legal?"
"Quite certain. You can do nothing, and any attempt would be a useless scandal. Besides, they are so happy, you do not know."
"So happy, are they? Do you think I am happy too?
"A man has every reason to be so, when his daughter marries an honest man. It is a piece of good luck that does not happen often."
"Probably from the scarcity of daughters who are willing to drive their fathers to distraction by their disobedience and contempt of authority,'" he said, savagely.
"No,—from the scarcity of honest men," I said. "Nino is a very honest man. You may go from one end of Italy to the other and not meet one like him."