“Mamma,” Lavinia demanded, torn by extravagant fears, “what has happened?”
The marchesa momentarily turned a concerned countenance.
“Your sister,” she said seriously, “has found some wrinkles on her forehead.”
Lavinia with difficulty restrained a sharp giggle. Gheta's grief and their mother's anxiety at first seemed so foolishly disproportionate to their cause. Then a realization of what such an occurrence meant to Gheta dawned upon her. To an acknowledged beauty like Gheta Sanviano the marks of Time were an absolute tragedy; they threatened her on every plane of her being.
“But when—” Lavinia began.
“They—Anna Mantegazza and she—went to the dressing room at the Guarinis', where, it seems, Anna discovered them—sympathetically, of course.”
Gheta's sobbing slowly subsided under the marchesa's urgent plea that unrestrained emotion would only deepen her trouble. She did not appear at dinner; and afterward the marchese, his wife and Lavinia sat wrapped in a gloomy silence. The marchesa was still handsome, in spite of increasing weight. The gray gaze inherited by Lavinia had escaped the parent; her eyes were soft and dense, like brown velvet. She was a woman of decision and now she brought her hands smartly together.
“We have waited too long with Gheta; we should not have counted so confidently on her beauty; time flies so treacherously. She must marry as soon as possible.”
“Thank God, there's Cesare Orsi!” her husband responded.
Lavinia was gazing inward at the secretly enshrined image of the Flower of Spain.