"Oh, oh!" exclaimed the professor, "so you would marry without my consent, would you? And pray, what would you live upon?"
"My wits."
"It seems to me that you are a pumpkin-head, and that you have lost them," returned the professor. "Does Giacinta know of this folly?"
"She knows that I am going to marry Donna Bianca Acorari."
"The devil she does!" observed Professor Rossano. "Go and talk it over with Giacinta, Silvio," he continued; "she is a sensible girl, and will tell you that you are going to make a fool of yourself, and of your family as well. As for me, I will have nothing to do with it. I have no time to spend on such trifles."
"But if I have already talked it over with Giacinta?" said Silvio. He knew very well how to manage his father. The professor would certainly end by doing what either of his children asked him to do. It was his method of carrying out his sense of parental duty. His children, whenever he remembered to think about them, puzzled him considerably; or rather, it puzzled him to know what was expected of him as a father. Occasionally he would sit and look at Giacinta with much the same expression on his face as may be seen on that of a retriever bitch whose puppies are beginning to assert their independence. He often felt that it was probably incumbent upon him to do something on her behalf, but he did not at all know what it might be, and still less how to do it. In Silvio's case things had been different. The boy had so early given unmistakable proofs of having both the brains and the character to take a line of his own in the world, that the professor had never had seriously to think of possible responsibilities towards him.
This affair of Silvio's, however, would, as Professor Rossano was quick to realize, need some careful handling on a father's part. He was very fond of his children, notwithstanding all his apparent absorption in his scientific occupations, and he was proud as well as fond of his son. He might laugh at Silvio, and call him an "imbecile," and he might pretend to regard his love for this Acorari girl as a foolish fancy that need not be seriously discussed. But in his heart Professor Rossano was uneasy. He knew that Silvio was not a susceptible lad, and that he had hitherto appeared to be remarkably indifferent to women. But he knew, too, his tenacity of character, and how when he had once fairly made up his mind to attain some object he would pursue his purpose with an energy that was almost dogged.
Added to these traits in Silvio's character, the professor knew the gentleness and loyalty of his nature and his simple, affectionate disposition. It would go very hard with the boy, he thought, if he were deceived or played with by any woman upon whom he had really set his affections. Notwithstanding his assertion that he would have nothing to say or do in the matter, Professor Rossano had not the slightest intention of allowing Silvio's life to be made unhappy if he could prevent it. The boy had a career before him, and it should most certainly not be wrecked by a priest-ridden woman and the daughter of so poor a specimen of humanity as the late Principe di Montefiano was reputed to have been. What Donna Bianca Acorari might be, the professor neither knew nor cared. Though they lived under the same roof, he had never set eyes upon the girl. She was probably bored to death with her step-mother and her step-mother's pious practices, and had encouraged the first good-looking young man she saw to make love to her, which young man had unfortunately happened to be Silvio.
Perhaps Silvio guessed something of what was passing in his father's mind. "I have already talked it over with Giacinta," he repeated, as the professor remained silent. "She does not think, any more than I think, that there is the slightest chance of Princess Montefiano listening to any proposal coming from us."
"And why not, I should like to know?" exclaimed the professor with sublime inconsistency.