This time Sir Charles's slow nod expressed complete agreement. He too had no liking for the work that was about to begin there. But no objection could be raised against Italy. He had known Italy well thirty or more years ago, but it must have been changed out of his knowledge. He remained silent, gazing at the wide landscape of blue wooded rises and dark hollows under the gorgeous colours of the sunset. They began to die out.
"You may travel far before you see anything like this," he observed to his son. "And don't be in a hurry to leave us. You have only just come home. Remember I am well over sixty."
Cosmo was quite ready to surrender himself to the peace of his Yorkshire home, so different from the strenuous atmosphere of the last campaign in the South of France. Autumn was well advanced before he fixed the day for his departure. On his last day at home Sir Charles addressed him with perfect calmness.
"When you pass into Italy you must not fail to see my old friend the Marquis d'Armand. The French King has appointed him as ambassador in Turin. It's a sign of high favour, I believe. He will be either in Turin or Genoa. . . ." Sir Charles paused, then after a perfectly audible sigh added with an effort: "The Marquise is dead. I knew her in her youth. She was a marvellous woman. . . ." Sir Charles checked himself, and then with another effort, "But the daughter of my old friend is I believe with her father now, a married daughter, the Countess of Montevesso."
"You mean little Adèle, sir," said Cosmo, with interest, but on Sir Charles's face there passed a distinct shade of distress.
"Oh, you remember the child," he said, and his tone was tender but it changed to contempt as he went on. "I don't know whether the fellow, I mean the man she married, is staying with them or whether they are living with him, or whether . . . I know nothing!"
The word "upstart," heard many years ago from his sister Henrietta, crossed Cosmo's mind. He thought to himself, "There is something wrong there," and to his father he said, "I will be able to tell you all about it."
"I don't want to know," Sir Charles replied with a surprising solemnity of tone and manner which hid some deeper feeling. "But give the Marquis my love and tell him that when he gets tired of all his grandeurs he may remember that there is a large place for him in this house as long as I live."
Late that evening Cosmo, saying good-bye to his sister, took her in his arms, kissed her forehead, and holding her out at arm's length said:
"You have grown into a charming girl, Henrietta."