"That is very likely, is it not?" retorted Giannella, her eyes flashing with sudden wrath, "after banishing me from her presence—for nothing—all these years! I wish she had left me alone in the beginning. Why didn't you all let me be a servant, earning my living like other girls, poor like me, and not made miserable by being educated above their wretched station in life? What good did the reading and writing, the designing and embroidery, ever do me? Here I am, a grown woman, still as dependent as a baby or an idiot. No, I am not grateful to the Princess. If she began, she should have finished. I could do for her what dear Signora Dati, of good memory, did—I could write her letters and save her many steps, many annoyances—I could have been useful to her or some other lady. That was what Signora Dati meant for me—she told me so once. But no. The Princess takes a dislike to me, and I am dropped out of sight. I would not take one step for her now. I will not go down this morning."
By this time Giannella's cheeks were flaming and tears of anger were brimming in her eyes. She stood, tense and panting, her hands behind her, the incarnation of sudden revolt. Mariuccia was appalled. The revelation of slow secret suffering would have grieved her to the heart at any other time, but now it was swallowed up in horror at the audacity of the girl's declaration. Not obey the commands of a Cestaldini, of Mariuccia's own Princess, the greatest personage in her world except the Holy Father himself! And then, this outburst of black ingratitude, why, it was like Lucifer rebelling against the Divine mandates! The stern old peasant felt that she must conquer this demon of insurrection on the spot. She came and put both her hands on Giannella's shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. The hands felt heavy as flatirons, but the girl stiffened her shoulders under their weight, and the gray eyes were bright and burning, for all the tears, as they met the angry black ones.
"You sometimes say that I have been like a mother to you," Mariuccia began, her deep masculine tones rumbling like approaching thunder. "Do you know what I would do if I were really your mother? For all that you are long and large, I would take that little stick over there," she pointed to a broomstick in the corner, "and give you a beating you would never forget. That is how we teach obedience and respect in the Castelli. But because you are not my child—though God knows I have loved you as if you were—" The voice choked and a dimness came over the old eyes that still never flinched from their steady, reproachful gaze.
Then Giannella's arms were flung round her neck, and the golden head was buried on her shoulder, and the young heart was weeping out its storm of love and sorrow and remorse against the old one.
"Mariuccia mia," she sobbed, "you have been an angel to me, and I am a wretch, an ingrate, but I love you. It was not true, not a single word. I will do anything you wish, anything—even go down to the Princess."
"What are you about, you females?" cried a sharp voice in the passage. "Do you know that it is half-past nine? Make haste and get ready to go to her Excellency." Then the study door was slammed impatiently. Evidently the master was not in a good temper this morning.
When the two women presented themselves at the Princess's door at five minutes to ten, Giannella was led away alone, and Mariuccia, much against her will, left to wait in the anteroom. All Giannella's rage had evaporated by this time and the old awe, the sense of being dominated by greater powers, stole over her as she followed the attendant through the series of remembered rooms, silent and splendid, darkened to keep out the heat, and pleasantly cool compared with the burning air of the courtyard outside. She recalled her first childish impression that the place must be a church; then, sooner than she expected it, she found herself standing before the Princess in the same old attitude of frightened submission. She knew that she would do whatever was required of her if the regal black-robed woman in the great chair by the table had any commands to issue. She had no particular curiosity now as to what they might prove to be; she only felt the oppressive weight of authority made visible.
But the command, when it came, gave her a most disagreeable shock. The Princess, with the gravity of a judge summing up the case against a prisoner, opened her discourse by stating the facts. An honorable proposal had been made to Giannella by the kind and upright gentleman to whom she already owed so much, and the judge was grieved to learn that it had been met in a most unsuitable spirit. No opening was given to the prisoner in which to express any private opinion, no loophole in the argument permitted escape from the logical conclusion—namely, that a young girl alone in the world was committing a great sin in refusing the protection of a Christian husband. Such a course could only point to one thing, an innate levity of character (the Princess, remembering her former apprehensions about Onorato, looked sternly condemnatory as she said this), a levity which, unchecked, must end in a disastrous downward career. She spoke of the horrible temptations to which needy and unprotected young women are exposed, warned her listener of the abominable designs harbored by men who tried to make poor girls believe that they admired them; contrasted Signor Bianchi's honorable behavior with that of such base deceivers; and finally asked Giannella to contemplate the picture of her own destiny should the Professor, justly incensed at her ingratitude, refuse her in future the shelter of his roof.
The speaker felt that this was not a time to mince matters, and she made her meaning so cruelly clear, that Giannella, who had never had her attention drawn to the degraded aspects of human nature, was overwhelmed with shame and horror, and found it impossible to control the flood of tears which rose to her eyes. The Princess, seeing that she had gained her point with the girl, sent for Mariuccia, who had been fuming in the anteroom for three-quarters of an hour. When she made her appearance, Giannella was standing beside the big chair, still weeping bitterly; the Princess was holding her hand quite kindly. The prisoner had repented, and was now to be forgiven in form.
"There is nothing to cry about now, my child," the judge was saying; "you are naturally sorry for having shown yourself so ungrateful and unamiable to the good man who has done so much for you and only asks to do more. But now you understand things better—how exceedingly fortunate it is for you, who have no relations and no dowry, to find an honest Christian husband to protect you from the dangers I have been describing and which would certainly assail you if you were left alone in the world. Now go home and tell Signor Bianchi that you will do your best to be a good wife to him. Believe me, respect is a better foundation for happiness in matrimony than any sentimental affection such as young people sometimes permit themselves to dream of. Heaven will grant you the necessary graces for fulfilling your duty in the married state; and here is a little present"—the Princess picked up a closed envelope from the table and put it into Giannella's hand—"with which you can buy your wedding dress—you had better get a black silk, it will be useful to you afterwards. Now wait outside while I speak with this good woman a moment."