"You may be right," he answered, almost meekly, after a little pause. "I had not looked at it in that light. You see, I am not a very sensitive man, and I was brought up rather roughly. My dear wife went to the other extreme, of course. No one could really be what she wished to make Marcello. He felt that himself, though I honestly did all I could to make him act according to his mother's wishes. But now that she is gone—" he broke off, and was silent a moment. "You may be right," he repeated, shaking his head thoughtfully. "You are a very good woman, and you ought to know."
She leaned back in her chair, and looked at him in silence, wondering whether she was not perhaps doing him a great injustice; yet his voice rang false to her ear, and the old conviction that he had never loved his wife came back with increased force and with the certainty that he had been playing a part for years without once breaking down.
"I will join Marcello, and see what I can do," he said.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Oh, yes! He keeps me informed of his movements; he is very good about writing. You know how fond of each other we are, too, and I am sure he will be glad to see me. He is back in Italy by this time. He was going to Siena. We were to have met in Rome in about a month, to go down to San Domenico together, but I will join him at once."
"If you find that—that young person with him, what shall you do?"
"Send her about her business, of course," answered Folco promptly.
"Suppose that she will not go, what then?"
"It can only be a question of money, my dear lady. Leave that to me. Marcello is not the first young fellow who has been in a scrape!"
Still Maddalena did not trust him, and she merely nodded with an air of doubt.