Her small laugh sounded again, and slipping her arm within Hera’s she drew her toward the door. Hera held back a little as they passed Tarsis, and, to the elder woman’s deeper mystification, said to him, softly:
“I will write the telegram.”
Tarsis returned a low bow, saying, “At your pleasure.”
They ascended to Donna Beatrice’s apartments. “Hera, I am positive that something dreadful has happened!” the aunt announced, when they were alone.
“Something dreadful was about to happen,” Hera explained, “but I have averted it.”
“I beseech you,” cried Donna Beatrice, “not to speak in riddles. In the name of heaven, what have you done?”
“I have told Signor Tarsis that I cannot be his wife.”
CHAPTER VI
A CENSORED DESPATCH
Though expectant of some shocking disclosure, and nerved for it, Donna Beatrice was not equal to an utter smash-up of all that she had planned and executed so satisfactorily to herself.
“Mario Forza!” she shrieked when the power to articulate was hers once more. “Oh, I knew it would be! From the first I saw the danger! We are ruined! To-morrow they will be here with their bills, a pack of hungry wolves. Hera! Wicked, heartless, cruel! Have you no mercy for me, for your father?”