Clelia Alba rose and dropped a low courtesy to him, then resumed her work at the wheel.
"You have heard, sir?" she said in a low tone. "They summons him to San Beda."
"Old Dario told me; but Adone will not go?"
"No sir; he will never go."
"He is in error."
"I do not know sir. He is best judge of that."
"I fear he is in no state of mind to judge calmly of anything. His absence will go against him. Instead of an amicable settlement the question will go to the tribunals, and if he be unrepresented there he will be condemned in contumacium."
"Amicable settlement?" repeated his mother, her fine face animated and stern, and her deep dark eyes flashing. "Can you, sir, dare you, sir, name such a thing? What they would do is robbery, vile robbery, a thousand times worse than aught the men of night ever did when they came down from the hills to harass our homesteads."
"I do not say this otherwise; but the law is with those who harass you now. We cannot alter the times, good Clelia; we must take them as they are. Your son should go to San Beda and urge his rights, not with violence but with firmness and lucidity; he should also provide himself with an advocate, or he will be driven out of his home by sheer force, and with some miserable sum as compensation."
Clelia Alba's brown skin grew ashen grey, and its heavy lines deepened.