"The Eminenza shall be obeyed," Rinaldo replied. As he was passing through the outer room, he encountered De Sanctis, who stopped to shake hands with him, saying, "I have been having a little conversation with the Signorina Brockmann and that old woman. Go to them, Signor Goffi, I am sure they want you. Incidentally I may say that you will find them prepared to answer all the questions with which you peppered me the other day. Diascoci, I think it is lucky for Bianchi that he is ill in bed, where you cannot get at him when you are satisfied as to the cause of his alarming dementia. Arrivederci. Yes, Don Ignazio, here I come." This to the chaplain, who was beckoning to him from a farther doorway.
The study was empty when De Sanctis was ushered into it and he sat down to wait for his patron. In ten minutes or so the latter returned. "I have been to the Professor's room," the Cardinal explained when the first greetings were over. "I wished to see for myself how he was going on and to ascertain whether he would be equal to a little conversation to-day."
"I trust he is quite convalescent, Eminenza?" De Sanctis replied. "I am deeply sorry to learn of his accident. I had no idea—"
But the Cardinal held up his hand for silence, and the lawyer got his lecture in stern, unsparing words, to which he listened with becoming humility and an appearance of such true contrition that the prelate softened, relented, and finally took him back into grace.
Something had wrought a change in De Sanctis's mood. To his own surprise he found himself inclined to admit that his desertion of the absent-minded Professor the day before was rather a shabby action. In consequence he was regretfully but logically obliged to lay aside his intention of discrediting the other man in the Cardinal's estimation. His natural curiosity, however, was by no means subdued, and he longed to know why Goffi had remained an hour shut up with the prelate in his study, and what, besides a mere polite acknowledgment of the artist's timely help, could have furnished the matter of the interview. The Cardinal himself led the conversation in the desired direction.
"Signor Goffi has just left me," he said, "and he told me that he called upon you the other day, Guglielmo. Since he spoke frankly about the object of his visit, I hope you will not consider me indiscreet if I ask you to do the same. He related a rather strange story. Should you feel justified in telling me what you know about it?"
"I think so, Eminenza," De Sanctis replied, "the Signorina Brockmann is the person chiefly concerned, and she seems to be in need of help and advice, which have failed her where she had a right to expect them. I am betraying no confidence in telling your Eminence that she has only this moment, and in this house, learned of her inheritance. For some unexplained reason Professor Bianchi has abstained from informing her of it."
"Why did you not tell her yourself, at the time?" the Cardinal inquired.
"The Professor was unwilling that I should speak to her on the subject," said the lawyer. "He described her as rather a hysterical girl. He feared the sudden excitement might be too much for her nerves, and preferred to communicate the good news gently and in private."
The Cardinal was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Are you sure that she was not told anything? What led you to speak to her about it now?"