She waited a moment, then added slowly, almost reluctantly: “I should not have spoken as I did of the Countess just now. She is not entirely bad, for she is devoted to her son. This morning she told me she believed that henceforth all would be well with him.”
“Indeed, I hope it will!” said Lily.
But still, there came across her a slight twinge of discomfort, for poor Cristina was looking at her with such a strangely adoring expression on her face. Her sensation of discomfort deepened when the old woman added:
“And it is to you—to you, that we owe everything! I always feared that Beppo would marry a haughty, ugly woman, whom he would detest, from whose hand it would be bitter to take anything!”
“I hope he will not do that,” said Lily, getting very red.
“We know he will not do that. He is going to marry an angel!”
Lily felt a sharp thrill of annoyance and dismay shoot through her. Aunt Cosy felt so convinced that she could force her, Lily, to marry Beppo, and Beppo to marry Lily, that she had actually confided her intention to Cristina!
The girl hastened her footsteps. She felt embarrassed and angry. But somehow she did not believe that Beppo would lend himself to such a plot, if plot it was.
Perhaps something of what she was feeling showed in her face, for several times Cristina looked at her with a nervous, apprehensive look, though she said nothing.
Things seldom turn out as one expects in this world. The bank manager, while professing himself quite willing to exchange the notes, yet offered her much fatherly counsel on the unwisdom of play. He apologised for what he called his impertinence, explaining that he had daughters of his own; and then he proceeded to tell her one or two sad stories about English ladies who had come to Monte Carlo and risked and lost the whole of their fortunes. Lily did not know what to answer. It seemed best to obey strictly Aunt Cosy’s injunctions, to listen to all he had to say, and to make no comment.