“Good-morning, Donna Maddalena,” said Fabiano, heartily.
“Good-morning,” said the woman, directing her eyes with a strange and pertinacious scrutiny to Hermione, who stood behind him. “I thought perhaps it was—”
She stopped. Behind, in the doorway, appeared the head of a young woman, covered with blue-black hair, then the questioning face of an old woman with a skin like yellow parchment.
“Don Antonio?”
She nodded, keeping her long, Arab eyes on Hermione.
“No. Are you expecting him so early?”
“He may come at any time. Chi lo sa?”
She shrugged her broad, graceless shoulders.
“It isn’t he! It isn’t Antonio!” bleated a pale and disappointed voice, with a peculiarly irritating timbre.
It was the voice of the old woman, who now darted over Maddalena Bernari’s shoulder a hostile glance at Hermione.