'In what way is she to do that?' asked he, astonished.
'She will tell you,' Formosa replied, grinning; and on getting a dismayed look from his daughter, he added: 'Tell him—tell him what you know; I allow you, Bianca. Perhaps he will believe you. You are harmless; you have no interest in cheating; you are not a sham apostle. Tell him all about it; perhaps you will convince him.'
Resolutely he put on his hat and took the medium's arm, as if to give him a proof of affectionate confidence after the way the doctor had abused him. The old noble, Guido Cavalcanti's descendant, with a lineage of six centuries, put his arm into that mean cheat's, who had been shown up as a liar a few minutes before. But who noticed that act that showed Formosa had again shipwrecked his dignity? The two were out of the house already. Bianca Maria and the doctor stood silently; the whole drama of their love seemed to ripen in that silence. With unscrupulous cunning, telling his daughter to speak, let the doctor know all, leaving them alone with that secret between them, the Marquis took his revenge for Amati's scepticism and his daughter's passiveness. He gaily and cruelly lighted the match of a mine, and then went off just as it was catching fire, so that all love's edifice should come down.
'Well, what have you to tell me?' said the doctor at last, keen to know the truth.
'What is it?' she said faintly, coming out of her sad musing.
'Have you not something to tell me? Did your father not advise—almost order you to do so?'
She started. Amati spoke sharply; she had never heard him speak so. She was offended, and became reserved.
'I know nothing,' she said very low. 'I have nothing to tell you.'
He bit his lip angrily. What evil influence had induced him to come between father and daughter in these queer, mad surroundings, all sickness, wretchedness, and vice? What was he doing, with his rough honesty, his vulgar integrity, in that half insane, poverty-struck life? What bonds, what perplexities, was he not making for his own heart, that up to then had kept pure and unmoved? The decisive hour had come. He must break it off sharply if he wanted to escape the fetters that smothered all his old instincts. He was going to make an end of these romantic complications—that subtle, annoying tragedy; his life was a plain one. He got up determinedly, saying: