Teresa, who at this time tried to be very cordial with him, spoke that evening of her visit to the Maxwells. A wind was blowing with unusual strength for Rome, banging shutters and driving rainy gusts against the glass. Sylvia was nervously afraid of a thunderstorm, and asked many times whether Wilbraham heard thunder, so many times that Teresa brought in Cesare as a diversion, making a jest of her intended efforts to tame him. Wilbraham did not say much in reply—he could hold his tongue when he liked—but he listened intently, and the next morning, while the rain was still falling heavily, and tumbling in sheets from broad eaves on the passers-by, he in his turn made his way to the Maxwells.
“She must not be allowed to employ that man,” he ended emphatically, after an explanation.
Colonel Maxwell pulled his moustache.
“Must not?” He laughed.
“Must not,” Wilbraham insisted.
“I suppose it’s hard on the poor beggar if nobody is to give him a leg up.”
“That’s not Teresa’s affair,” said his wife severely. “I quite agree—fully—with Mr Wilbraham. Teresa is so impulsive that she has to be protected against herself. Of course she ought not to be hand and glove with socialists and murderers.”
“That’s it,” said Wilbraham, delighted. “And you think you can stop it?”
“Think? I am sure. Five lire will stop anything with Peppina. But it really is folly of Teresa.”
“Perhaps. But a generous folly.”