In the darkness, as they drove home, Laura asked, "Did you see Giustino Morelli?"
"No, he wasn't there."
"What do you mean? He was there."
"For me, he wasn't there. Giustino Morelli is dead."
V.
Cesare Dias encouraged the attentions which his young friend Luigi Caracciolo was paying to his ward Anna Acquaviva. He encouraged them quietly, with the temperance which he showed in all things, not with the undisguised eagerness of a father anxious to marry off his daughter.
And yet he was certainly anxious to marry her off. He was anxious to hand his responsibilities over to a husband, to confide to the care of another the safeguarding of that ardent and fragile soul, which threatened at any moment to fall into emotional errors. A thousand symptoms that could not escape his observant eye, kept him in a state of secret nervousness about her. It was true, nevertheless, that she had greatly changed for the better. Thanks to his constant watchfulness, to his habit of reproving her whenever she betrayed the impulsive side of her nature, to his sarcasm, to his biting speech, she had indeed greatly changed in manner.
A desire to obey him, to please him, a painless resignation, a loving humility, showed themselves in everything she said and did.