He walked up and down the room impatiently; then he rang the bell twice. Margherita came forward in the same trembling, almost hesitating way as her husband. The old nobleman, descended from Guido Cavalcanti and ten generations of gentlemen, now stooped to cheat like a rogue.
'Margherita, do you know if Bianca Maria has money?' he asked absently.
'Who would give it to her? The few francs she gets from Sister Maria degli Angioli and her godfather at Christmas she gives to the poor.'
'I thought she had some,' he said, putting on his great coat. 'I am much embarrassed; I have to pay a debt this evening, and I supposed Bianca Maria would help her father. I am very much annoyed. Perhaps you have some money, Margherita?'
'I have money,' said she, not daring to deny it, out of respect and fear of her master.
'Can you give me some? I'll give it you back to-morrow evening.'
'Really,' she replied, 'I have some money, but I wished to buy a dress for her ladyship. Your lordship does not notice it; but at twenty, and as lovely as a queen, my mistress has only had two dresses in two years—one for summer, the other for winter. She does not even notice it herself, poor soul!... I had thought of buying one for her. Your lordship could have given me back the money at your leisure.'
'Sister Margherita, give me that money now, and to-morrow evening, I promise you before God, Bianca Maria will have money for ten dresses.'
'Amen,' said Margherita sadly and resignedly.
She could not resist the emotion in her master's voice. Pulling out a silk purse from her bodice, she detached a hundred-franc note from a roll of notes. He took it and hid it at once in his purse, and went out, saying with wild joy, in a queer tone of certainty, 'Till to-morrow evening.' And he said 'Till to-morrow evening' again as he passed through the drawing-room, standing by his daughter at a window which she had opened to get fresh air to try and recover from her moral and physical weakness.