“I suppose the money is put to good use. Precisely how they disburse it I do not know. The secretary sends printed reports, but I have not read them.”
There was a quality of absence in his manner, accounted for by the fact that his mind was busying itself with Hera’s remark about the hungry mouth. While in Paris he had received by post from unknown senders not one but many copies of the newspaper that contained the picture of his punched nose and its plenteous flow of gold pieces. Then the cartoon had seemed to him merely one more shaft of malice aimed at a successful man. In his career of achievement he had steeled his sensibility against criticism, rating it as the twin brother of envy, and borrowing no disquiet on either score; but now, grace to the chance observation of Hera, he saw the cartoon with a new and clearer eye. He perceived the force at work behind it—the popular ill-will, which gave such point to the product of the artist’s pencil; and he apprehended, as he never had before, that herein smouldered an ember easily fanned to flame.
He had accustomed himself to meeting difficulties promptly, and turning apparent disadvantage to a factor of self-service. Now he reflected—and the thought gleamed shrewdly in his half-closed eyes—that this ember of peril might be smothered with a few handfuls of those coins, which were his by right of conquest, though the growing madness of the time found them so ignoble. Indeed, it was an excellent idea—this one of his wife—to throw a bone to the snarling dogs. He would give her charitable whim his countenance, even his unstinted support. He would let his wife scatter largesse among the malcontents; let her shine as the doer of good deeds, but the world would know—the house of Barbiondi had no name for wealth—the workers would applaud Antonio Tarsis, friend of the poor. Moreover, this co-operation would place his wife under an obligation to him, give her one more proof of his desire to gratify her every wish. So he said to her, at the moment that the train entered the suburbs of Milan:
“I count it noble of you, Hera, to have a care for the unfortunate. A little thought convinces me that you are right in your view. There are times when we should not stop to reason why.”
“I am glad that we can see alike in this,” she said. “There is joy, I know, in giving.”
“And I wish to be in accord with you. Believe me, you have my warmest sympathy in whatever work you contemplate. As to funds, I need not tell you that my fortune is at your disposal.”
“You are most generous; I thank you,” she said, and told him of the plan conceived in London.
In the station they saw Don Riccardo and his sister coming down the platform to welcome them.
“Babbo!” Hera cried out before her father caught sight of her, and the next moment she was in his arms.
“Ah, truant!” he said, holding her hands and swinging them, while he looked into her eyes as if to read their secret. “I have you again. And you come to stay. Is it not so, my treasure?”