“I should like to—to help you,” was what he lamely said.
“Who can?” said Teresa, shaking her head. It’s my snare that I will never believe things mayn’t be altered—improved—or that I shouldn’t have a finger in the mending. Sylvia will tell you that, and here she comes to stop us from quarrelling any further.
“Quarrelling?” cried Sylvia anxiously.
“Well,” returned her sister, “at any rate, you arrived in the middle of an apology, and it was mine.”
“Never mind, then,” said the girl, nodding her head. “I know Walter won’t be angry. Not really angry, you know.”
“Don’t be too sure,” mocked Teresa, going away. At the door she flung a shaft at Wilbraham. “Don’t you think before worse comes to worse we might apply to Cesare?”
She closed the door and stood thinking. The word was only a half jest, for she had more than once breathed a wish to enlist a socialist on her side; to hear at least what his party had to suggest for the mending of matters which seemed beyond the reach of others. If she could see—if she could soften Cesare!—and being a woman and young, she never doubted that softening would follow the seeing—if, perhaps, she might indirectly help him, so lifting away the unpleasant remembrance of having once made him suffer unjustly! Half reluctantly she called Nina.
“Where shall I find Cesare—Cesare Bandinelli, you know?”
“Where?” echoed Nina. “Chi lo sa! Wherever there is mischief.”
“Is he at the same place?”