"It is not the whole income of the place that he takes," remarked Marcantonio.
"That makes no difference," said Diana. "If you were to have it all, it would be the same. You are bound to take care of it. Your own lawyer knows nothing about this transaction. You may not be in Rome again for three months. Make some provision for your absence. Who is to collect your rents, in the first place?"
"I suppose somebody would," said Marcantonio laughing. "But you have a much better head for business than I, Diana mia. Perhaps you are right."
"You manage things very well, caro mio, so long as they are under your hand. But you hate to go and look after business when you want to be doing something else."
"After all," he argued, "when a man is just married"—
"He ought to be specially careful of his affairs, for his children's sake," interrupted Donna Diana with remarkable good sense.
She wanted a day or two in Rome, and she thought he was really remiss in his management. She had rather a contempt for a man who cast everything to the winds in order to be one more day with his wife. She did not believe that his wife would have done as much for him.
The end of it was that he agreed to stay a little longer, at least one day more than he had at first proposed; and he wrote an affectionate letter to Leonora, half loving, half playful, explaining his position, and telling her of his sister's coming, that she might be ready to receive her. He added that he hoped to see them very affectionate and intimate, for that Diana was the best friend his wife could have. If Batiscombe had wanted to make a friendship between two women he would not have gone about it in that way. Marcantonio was very young and inexperienced, though he was also very good and honest. His sister saw both sides of his character and understood them. Leonora saw, but only understood the honesty of him. His inexperience she supposed to be a sort of paternal, philistine, prosaic, humdrum capacity for harping on unimportant things, and she already felt the most distinct aversion for that phase of his nature.
Diana and Marcantonio went down by the night train, having stayed the better half of a week in Rome. Marcantonio sent a telegram to Leonora in the afternoon, to say that they would come. They had a compartment to themselves, and as they sat with the windows all open, rushing along through the quiet night, they fell into conversation about Sorrento. Madame de Charleroi had taken off her hat, and the breeze fanned the smooth masses of her hair into rough gold under the light of the lamp, like the ripple on the sea at sunset. She was a little tired with the many doings that had occupied her in Rome, and her face was pale as she leaned back in the corner. Her brother looked at her as he spoke. 'Of course,' he thought, 'there was never any one so beautiful as Diana.' What he said was different.
"You should see Leonora; she is a perfect miracle,—more beautiful every day. And though she has been on the water several times, she is not the least sunburnt."