“Then he’d tell her that they must think of the children first and that two people who wanted to do the right thing ought to get along somehow, even if they didn’t love each other. I’ve heard them both say that, about other people.”
“You asked me if I couldn’t talk to my uncle. I would only that Mother did when we first came and told him all the cutting things my father had said. Uncle just raved and was for a legal separation right away, but my mother saw she had gone too far and told him that they would wait. My uncle called him a fortune hunter; and he thought that about him anyway, before they were married. They talked about it that time in Milan.”
Betty could imagine what sharp things must have been said. She was quiet, thinking over what Lucia had told her and Lucia stopped to wipe her eyes again.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, “it’s helped clear things up, some way, to talk with you, Betty. I believe I will write and tell my father to come and ‘get her!’ I could ask him if neither of them cared enough about me to try to make up, and if he wanted to see some other man fall in love with my mother and try to win her, all for the want of his making love the way he can. Oh, you ought to see my father, Betty. Giovanna says that they fell in love at first sight because of their looks. And my father is not a fortune hunter! He hasn’t as much money as my mother has and I suppose that is one reason why he was so proud about the whole thing; but he has a good home in Milan. You’d love it, Betty, and I hope you’ll be in it some day. Oh!”
Now, indeed, Lucia cried in earnest and Betty, holding her affectionately, let her cry it out.
CHAPTER VII
LYON “Y” AND A COUNTESS
The door stood a little ajar and Lucia, having difficulty in stifling her sobs, suddenly rose and ran toward it, to close it, as Betty guessed. Lucia had merely pushed it to before they had cuddled down in the cushions. But as she grasped the ornate bronze handle, the first notes of something beautiful sounded upon the piano below. Lucia stopped, caught her breath as one does after crying, mopped her eyes again and stood still to listen. After a sparkling prelude, a voice began to sing.
Betty sat up at once. “Oh, that lovely voice, Lucia. Who is it?” Betty had in mind the ladies who were around that dinner table. This was a clear soprano voice, haunting and full of feeling as the song went on.
Lucia turned and softly said, “My Mother.” She waited a few moments and then ran into her bathroom to bathe her tear-stained face. But Betty went over to the door to listen till the song was over. It was nothing that she knew—some Italian song, but Betty felt an ache at her heart. Who was this that could sing like that? Betty had seen the countess in several different moods or phases—that of the capable traveler, the efficient mother when Lucia came home after her slight injury upon the hike, the pleasant, well-poised, gracious hostess—now here was something else.
The song was finished. When Betty heard the voices in conversation again, she closed the door and went back to where her books were, looking over her lesson till Lucia came back. Lucia was smiling and said that it was “all over.”