"We will see; it may be soon or late, but it can't be now."
"How much am I to tell her, Carlo?"
"Enough to keep her from fretting."
The countess then asked herself how much she knew. Her habit of receiving her son's word and will as supreme kept her ignorant of anything beyond the outline of his plans; and being told to speak openly of them to another, she discovered that her acquiescing imagination supplied the chief part of her knowledge. She was ashamed also to have it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered every detail of his occupation, so that she could not argue against him, and had to submit to see her dearest wishes lightly swept aside.
"I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess d'Isorella; not the afterthought," she said to Vittoria.
"She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani."
"Call me mother now and then. Yes; she is beautiful. She has a bad name."
"Envy must have given it, I think."
"Of course she provokes envy. But I say that her name is bad, as envy could not make it. She is a woman who goes on missions, and carries a husband into society like a passport. You have only thought of her beauty?"
"I can see nothing else," said Vittoria, whose torture at the sight of the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous pleading on its behalf.