“They say he loved her.”
“Eh-h-h-h-h—h! So they say. They came from Sicily alone, these two, without parents, and he was strict with her, poor little baby, and so—! It was not a love I should have liked, but as for stealing! No, no, no, that is not Cesare.”
“Why did not the guardie say so, then?” demanded Teresa impatiently.
“See, eccellenza, they are afraid, and they do not like him. He is hand and glove with the fiercest men in Rome, men who would overthrow anything, everything, king or pope, what you will! Since Camilla died it is as if an evil spirit had entered into him—he keeps with those men, he never hears mass, he is like a lost soul. What took him into San Martino, I wonder? At any rate I wish the eccellenza had had nothing to do with him,” Nina ended, uneasily.
And Teresa wished the same thing with all her heart. The young violent face, the passion of the eyes, haunted her. Her grandmother and sister were taken up with delight and wonderment over her good fortune. She tried to fling herself into it with them, but while she planned, with all the generosity of her nature, which but yesterday would have leapt to feel certain galling chains removed, her thoughts wandered away to the police station, and to Cesare in the lock-up, with a board for his bed, and the smart of an unjust accusation goading him to yet more furious rebellion against his fate.
Chapter Three.
If Wilbraham were certain of one thing, it was that Donna Teresa ought not to be encouraged to go to the police office. He already called himself an idiot for having let her do so, but as he had never been known seriously to take himself for an idiot, this was probably no more than a figure of speech. It meant, however, that he disapproved of her conduct, and especially of her sympathy for Cesare, for even the knowledge that the last accusation was untrue had not changed his opinion of the accused. Perhaps, if anything, the annoyance had accentuated it.
Yet, the next morning, when he ran over what lay before him, he was not unwilling to admit that he should be early at Via Porta Pinciana, so as to make sure that Donna Teresa did not start on any fool’s errand without him. And with disapproval so active, he might have been more gratified than he was to hear from Mrs Brodrick that an absolutely disabling headache obliged the marchesa to leave everything in his hands.