"You will not dare—"
Bianca laughed again, and threw her head up like a young horse.
"Dare!" she said, scornfully. "When I have given my word, I do not break it—and do you suppose that I shall break my word when I have given my love? Ah, no, per esempio! I am not so vile as that."
"Oh, but the girl is mad, possessed!" ejaculated Princess Montefiano.
Bianca looked at her almost indifferently.
"I think not!" she said, quietly—and then her eyes flashed with sudden contempt, as she added: "And as for Monsieur d'Antin, you will tell him from me that I have no need of the generosity of a coward and a liar."
And turning on her heel, Bianca walked slowly from the room without another word, leaving Princess Montefiano in a condition of speechless astonishment and dismay.
XXII
After leaving her step-mother, Bianca went to her own room, where she shut herself up in order to be able to think quietly. Although she felt that she had been by no means the vanquished party in the unexpected skirmish which had just taken place, she was far more ill at ease in her own mind than she had allowed herself to show to the princess. Whatever might be Bianca Acorari's faults, lack of courage, moral or physical, was certainly not among them; and during the time she had been at Montefiano, her courage and her pride combined had forbidden her to show any external sign of the doubt and uncertainty ever increasing in her heart as the days lengthened into weeks, and yet no word from Silvio Rossano had reached her.
That Silvio's father had written to her step-mother making a formal proposal of marriage on his son's behalf, and that this proposal had been indignantly rejected by the princess, Bianca was already well aware. Monsieur d'Antin had informed her of the fact a very few days after his arrival at Montefiano. It had been this information, indeed, and the kindly and sympathetic manner of its conveyance, that had caused Bianca to regard Monsieur d'Antin as the one person about her to whom she might venture to confide her hopes and difficulties. It had not been long, however, before vague and fleeting suspicions, which she had at first dismissed from her mind as not only absurd, but almost wrong to entertain, as to Monsieur d'Antin's motives for seeking her society, developed into certainties, before which she had recoiled with fear and disgust. Her instinct had very soon told her that there was more in her uncle's—for she had begun to regard him in that relationship—manner towards her than was justified by his professed compassion and sympathy. Sometimes, when alone with her, he had made certain observations which, although apparently in connection with her and Silvio's love for each other, had offended her sense, if not of modesty, at least of propriety and good taste. She could hardly explain to herself why they should have done so, but she was conscious that they did do so. Sometimes, too, she had surprised an expression on Monsieur d'Antin's countenance as he looked at her which had made her shrink from him, as she might have shrunk from some evil thing that meant to harm her. Her suspicions once aroused, Bianca had been quick to perceive that the more she was alone with Monsieur d'Antin, the more apt he became to assume a manner towards her which caused her no little embarrassment as well as distaste. The result had been an ever-growing feeling of distrust, which soon made her regret bitterly that she had ever allowed herself to talk to her uncle about Silvio, and latterly she had sought every pretext to avoid being alone with him. Sometimes, too, she reproached herself deeply for having disregarded her promise to Silvio that she would confide in nobody until he had an opportunity of again communicating with her. This promise, however, as she repeatedly told herself, had been given when they had still a channel of communication in the person of Mademoiselle Durand, and before she had become, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner at Montefiano. But now Mademoiselle Durand had utterly vanished from the scene—gone, as Monsieur d'Antin informed her, to Paris with the wife and children of a secretary of the French embassy in Rome, and Bianca had quickly realized that no communication, direct or indirect, from her lover would be allowed to reach her as long as she was within the walls of Montefiano.