"Money difficulties!" repeated Silvio. "You mean that perhaps Bianca's property has been interfered with—that she would not be as rich as she was supposed to be when she comes of age? Is that what you mean, Don Agostino?"
"Partly—yes."
Silvio's eyes gleamed blue in the moonlight. "Magari!" he exclaimed, simply.
Don Agostino looked at him for a moment, and then he smiled.
"You would be glad?" he asked.
"Of course I should be glad—I should be delighted," returned Silvio. "If it were not for her money," he continued, "it would all have been so simple—do you not see what I mean? Of course there are the titles—but anybody can have titles. I know a cab-driver in Naples who is a marchese, an absolutely genuine marchese, of Bourbon creation. But the money makes it another affair altogether."
"The money makes it another affair altogether," repeated Don Agostino; "that is very true." He spoke more as though talking to himself than to Silvio.
"Perhaps," continued Silvio, "if the princess and her Belgian confessor could be made to understand that I do not want Bianca's money—that I have enough of my own both for her and for myself—they would not be so anxious to marry her to that old baron. So you see, Don Agostino, my reason for being glad if there has been some mismanagement of the Montefiano properties."
Don Agostino looked at him with a smile.
"Yes, Silvio," he said, "I see your reason—it is one that I should have expected from you. But it is not a good reason."