“Brava, daughter mine!” he said. “Ah, I have longed for the day. I knew it must come.”
It was impossible for Aunt Beatrice to answer to the feeling of relief and gladness that expressed itself in the countenance of father and daughter; her thought turned rather to Tarsis, whom she could see in no other light than that of a man cruelly wronged by his wife. She did not deny herself the privilege of candid observations to this effect, which Don Riccardo and Hera heard with patience. But when she urged Hera to reconsider her act and begged her father to realise, before it might be too late, that ruin to the family must result, Don Riccardo spoke his mind. He had learned somewhat through suffering, and the example of his daughter had quickened his latent strength.
He answered her that he did not care! Ruin or no ruin, he was glad that events had taken this turn. The worst that could betide, he declared, a trifle grandiloquently, was material want; starvation, perhaps. Was not that a better fate than to live on with his daughter a hostage to fortune, held in luxurious thraldom? Hera listened and rejoiced for the sense of respect that came now to mingle with the love she had always borne her father.
The scene was interrupted at this point by a servant’s announcement that Colonel Rosario was in the reception hall. His regiment of Bersaglieri, on the march to Milan in response to a call for reinforcements, had halted near by. The Duke and his daughter went at once to greet him.
“My men,” said the old soldier, “are at your gate, and their commander is at your disposal for luncheon.”
“Bravo! A thousand welcomes!” exclaimed Don Riccardo, as he pressed the other’s hand and checked an impulse to add, “You could not have arrived at a more logical moment; when last you honoured our board we were rejoicing for my daughter’s fancied escape; now we are glad for her real one.” But no hint was given him of the reason for Hera’s presence in the villa.
Donna Beatrice did not appear until just before the hour for luncheon. In solitude she continued her struggle with the new predicament until she had to acknowledge herself beaten. She could not cope at all with this new-born spirit of disdain for consequences evinced by her brother and his amazing daughter. The poor woman’s one hope was that the resourceful Tarsis might find a way to save them from themselves.
When she had taken her place at the table opposite Colonel Rosario, it seemed to her all the more urgent that some strong hand should curb their reckless course. Here she found herself in an atmosphere of cheerfulness, even gaiety, that was scandalously at odds with the gloom demanded by the terrible situation. Actually, the wife who had forsaken her husband because of some foible was able to sit there and eat and drink, and laugh over the rugged jokes of an old soldier. And the father of this disgraced daughter was so lost to shame that he outdid the others in merriment. Misericordia! They were turning the calamity into a jubilee! She breathed a thanksgiving when Colonel Rosario had left the house and she saw the bayonets glinting in the sun, as the Bersaglieri marched toward Milan.
Although convinced from the moment of Hera’s return that Mario Forza was the diabolus ex machina, as she phrased it, Donna Beatrice, by a heroic act of self-restraint, had refrained from speaking her mind to that effect. Bitterly she regretted the omission an hour after luncheon when she saw Hera riding forth alone, as she did in the old days. From a window she watched her, now through breaks in the foliage, now over the tops of the trees, while she moved down the winding road of the park. She saw the white plume of her hat pass under the gateway arch and caught a glimpse of her beyond the wall as she rode away.
“A tryst with Mario Forza!” she assured herself; and, stirred to action by the abhorrent thought, she sent a servant for her brother, that she might break a lance with him on this aspect of the case. The footman informed her that his Excellency was having his afternoon nap.