"Just so! It's no use speaking. I don't know what girls are coming to. When I was young a man like that wouldn't have been allowed to cross the threshold of any decent house in Rome. He would have been locked up in prison instead of sitting for his bust to the ward of the Prime Minister."
"Aunt Betsy," said Roma, "I want to ask you a question."
"Be quick, then. My head is coming on as usual. Natalina! Where's Natalina?"
"Was there any quarrel between my father and his family before he left home and became an exile?"
"Certainly not! Who said there was? Quarrel indeed! His father was broken-hearted, and as for his mother, she closed the gate of the palace, and it was never opened again to the day of her death. Natalina, give me my smelling salts. And why haven't you brought the cushion for the cat?"
"Still, a man has to live his own life, and if my father thought it right...."
"Right? Do you call it right to break up a family, and, being an only son, to let a title be lost and estates go to the dogs?"
"I thought they went to the Baron, auntie."
"Roma, aren't you ashamed to sneer at me like that? At the Baron, too, in spite of all his goodness! As for your father, I'm out of patience. He wasted his wealth and his rank, and left his own flesh and blood to the mercy of others—and all for what?"
"For country, I suppose."