“Madam, I wish you a very good day,” he said, as he took Giovanna’s hand for a moment and bent over it. “You are punctuality itself—a commendable virtue in your sex! but one, unless they are somewhat belied, more honoured by them in the breach than the observance.”
Sir Gilbert’s banter, on the very rare occasions on which he condescended to indulge in it, was of a somewhat ponderous and old-fashioned kind. Not that he was in any bantering mood to-day—far from it; his only object was, by means of it, the more effectually to conceal the inward tremor which had seized him now the moment had come which was to give him a grandson to take the place of the son whom he had banished long years before.
For the moment Giovanna found nothing to say in reply. For the first time she seemed to realise the enormity of the fraud to which she had lent herself, and the shame of it. But it was too late to go back even had she been willing to do so—which was doubtful: for it is no uncommon experience for a person to recognise to the full the blackness of any wrong-doing in which he or she may be engaged, and yet not to falter, or swerve for a moment from the line of action they have laid down for themselves.
“And this, madam, is the grandson whom you have brought from the kingdom of Nowhere to make me a present of,” continued Sir Gilbert as he faced Luigi.
“This, sir, is your grandson, Lewis Clare,” replied Giovanna in quiet measured tones.
“Lewis Clare!—why Lewis?” demanded the old man, turning quickly on her.
“It was the name his father chose for him. Was there not—pardon the question—a certain Colonel Lewis Clare, who lived a great number of years ago and who fell in battle?”
The baronet nodded.
“It was after him that my husband named the boy,” added Giovanna, her black eyes looking Sir Gilbert unflinchingly in the face.
“He might have done worse—he might have done very much worse. It is a name to be proud of, madam.”