XV
On his arrival at the Villa Acorari, the Abbé Roux was at once ushered into Princess Montefiano's private sitting-room, where she was waiting him with evident anxiety. It was clear that something had occurred to upset and annoy her, and the abbé was at once convinced that, as he had suspected when he received her telegram, she had by some means discovered her step-daughter's secret.
He was scarcely prepared, however, for what had really happened.
That morning's post had brought the Princess Montefiano a letter from the Senator Rossano. To say that its contents had filled her with amazement would be but a meagre description of her feelings. It was a very short letter, but, like the learned senator's discourses, very much to the point, and couched in a terseness of language very unusual in Italian missives of so formal a character.
The professor briefly apologized for addressing the Princess Montefiano personally, without having the honor of knowing her otherwise than as a tenant in her house, but added that the personal nature of the matter he had to lay before her must be his excuse. He then proceeded, without any further circumlocution, to inform the princess that his only son, Silvio, had fallen desperately in love with her step-daughter, Donna Bianca Acorari; that his son had some reason to believe Donna Bianca might return his attachment were he permitted to address her; and finally, that he, the Senator Rossano, at his son's desire, begged to make a formal request that the latter should be allowed to plead his own cause with Donna Bianca. The princess had, not unnaturally, been petrified with astonishment on reading this letter, and her amazement had quickly been succeeded by indignation. The thing was absurd, and more than absurd; it was impertinent. Evidently this young man had seen Bianca going in and out of the Palazzo Acorari, and had imagined himself to have fallen in love with her—if, indeed, it was not simply a barefaced attempt to secure her money without love entering at all into the matter.
Her first impulse had been to send for Bianca and ask her what it all meant. On second thoughts, however, she decided not to mention the subject to her until she had consulted the Abbé Roux. If, as was probable, Bianca knew nothing about it, and the whole affair were only the silly action of a boy who had persuaded his father that he was desperately in love with a young girl upon whom he believed himself to have made an impression, it would be very imprudent to put any ideas of the kind into her head. No, the only wise course, the princess reflected, was to hear what Monsieur l'Abbé might advise, though naturally there could be but one answer to the Senator Rossano's letter. Indeed, she would not reply to it in person. Such an impertinence should be treated with silent contempt; or, if some answer had to be given, she would depute the abbé to interview these Rossanos.
The door had hardly closed behind the servant who showed him into the room when Princess Montefiano put the letter into the abbé's hands.
"Did you ever read anything so extraordinary in your life?" she asked him. "Yes, it was about this I telegraphed to beg you to come to me. It is an unheard-of impertinence, and I think the professor, senator—or whatever he might be—Rossano must be a fool, and not the clever man you say he is, or he would never have listened to this ridiculous son of his."
Princess Montefiano was evidently thoroughly angry, as, indeed, from her point of view, she had every right to be. The Abbé Roux read the letter through attentively. Then he coughed, arranged his soutane, and read it through a second time.
"Well?" asked the princess, impatiently. "Are you not as much amazed as I am?"