"Unless—what?" asked the abbé, smiling. "A young man cannot be expected to be always molto serio," he added, leniently.
"Sicuro! especially so handsome a lad as the signorino. Naturally the women made up to him. The French mademoiselle who came to the principessina, for instance; he had met the signorino and her walking together—oh, more than once. Not that there was anything in it, probably—for it was in the daytime he had met them—in the morning, indeed—and who wanted to make love on an empty stomach?"
The Abbé Roux checked the porter's garrulity with a slight gesture, and appeared to take but little interest in the matter.
Nevertheless, as he left Palazzo Acorari he wondered whether by any chance this young Rossano could be the individual he was looking for. His personal appearance answered to Monsieur d'Antin's description of Donna Bianca's lover—and what more probable than that the two had met repeatedly in this way in and out of the palazzo, and had managed to communicate with each other? The Frenchwoman, of course! She had been the channel of communication! The abbé thought that he must have been very dull not to think at once of so simple an explanation of the affair. But he had momentarily forgotten that Professor Rossano's son was living at home. He had heard all about Silvio, and knew that he was an engineer who was rapidly making a considerable reputation for himself in his profession.
But the thing was absurd—preposterous! There could be no difficulty in at once putting a stop to this young man's presumption. Moreover, the princess would be horrified at the bare idea of her step-daughter marrying the son of an infidel scientist who had ventured to attack certain dogmas of the Church. At any rate, if the princess were not properly horrified at the notion of such an alliance, he, the Abbé Roux, would have little difficulty in making her so.
Altogether, it was perhaps very fortunate that Donna Bianca's lover had turned out to be young Rossano and not somebody of higher rank, whose proposals might not be so easy to dismiss as unsuitable. He must try to get definite proof of Silvio Rossano being the suitor, however, and once he had this proof in his hands, he could speak to the princess as Monsieur d'Antin had proposed. And Monsieur d'Antin? The Abbé Roux laughed softly to himself as he thought of Monsieur d'Antin. It was certainly droll. Monsieur le Baron was—well, it was very evident what he was. But he was shrewd, too! He wished to gratify two passions at once. After all, his proposal was worthy of consideration; for if his scheme were carried out, everybody's little passions might be gratified and nobody would be the worse—except, perhaps, Donna Bianca Acorari. Yes, it was certainly worth thinking about—this self-sacrifice offered by Monsieur d'Antin. If the princess could be brought to see it, a marriage between her step-daughter and her brother would, as Monsieur d'Antin had frequently remarked, keep the Montefiano possessions in the family, where it was very advisable from his—the abbé's—point of view that they should be kept.
The Abbé Roux had not been virtually the manager of Donna Bianca Acorari's future inheritance for nearly ten years without having developed a very keen personal interest in it. The princess, as she said of herself, was not, and never had been, a woman of business. If she had displayed a certain amount of worldly acumen in inducing the late Prince Montefiano to make her his wife, there had been, it is only fair to say, no undue pecuniary motives in her manoeuvres. Her life was a lonely one, with absolutely no interests in it except those supplied by her religion. These, indeed, might have been wide enough—so wide as to embrace all humanity, had Mademoiselle d'Antin's religion been other than a purely egoistical affair. But, like many other ultra-pious people of all creeds, she labored under a conviction that future happiness was only to be purchased at the cost of much present mortification. Her own soul, consequently, was a perpetual burden to her; and so, although in a very much less degree, were the souls of others. Hence, at one moment of Mademoiselle d'Antin's life, a convent had seemed to be the most fitting place in which to retire, and she had come to Rome almost persuaded that she had a vocation to save herself and others, by a life of seclusion and prayer, from the future evils which she honestly imagined a Divine Creator petty and vindictive enough to be capable of inflicting on His creatures.
It was at this period that she happened to be thrown in the society of Prince Montefiano, who had taken to appearing in the salons of the "black" world, perhaps as a sincere though tardy means of mortifying that flesh which he had invariably indulged so long as it had been able to respond to the calls made upon it.
Very soon after her marriage with the reclaimed sheep, Mademoiselle d'Antin, now Principessa di Montefiano, had made the acquaintance of her compatriot, the Abbé Roux—at that time acting as secretary to a leading cardinal of the Curia, well-known for his irreconcilable and ultramontane principles. It was, perhaps, an exaggeration to declare, as did the gossips in the clubs, that the princess and the Abbé Roux between them had wrestled so hard for the salvation of Prince Montefiano's soul as to cause him to yield it up from sheer ennui. It was certain, however, that he soon succumbed under the process, and that the abbé became more than ever indispensable to his widow.
Prince Montefiano had, as the Abbé Roux soon found, left his affairs in a very unsatisfactory state. The lands remaining in his possession were heavily mortgaged, and a large proportion of the income derived from the fief of Montefiano—the only property of any importance left was swallowed up in payment of interest on the mortgages.