“Oh, God!” cried the mother, “how will this quarrel end? Santa Virgina! place thyself between them!”
The baron, who had been striding up and down the room, now seated himself; an icy sternness darkened his face; he looked fixedly at his daughter, and said to her, in a gentle, weakened voice,—
“Ginevra, no! you will not marry him. Oh! say nothing more to-night—let me think the contrary. Do you wish to see your father on his knees, his white hairs prostrate before you? I supplicate you—”
“Ginevra Piombo does not pass her word and break it,” she replied. “I am your daughter.”
“She is right,” said the baroness. “We are sent into the world to marry.”
“Do you encourage her in disobedience?” said the baron to his wife, who, terrified by the word, now changed to marble.
“Refusing to obey an unjust order is not disobedience,” said Ginevra.
“No order can be unjust from the lips of your father, my daughter. Why do you judge my action? The repugnance that I feel is counsel from on high, sent, it may be, to protect you from some great evil.”
“The only evil could be that he did not love me.”
“Always he!”