When he reached Elena’s house Sebastiana came out and stood at the top of the outside staircase waiting for him to come up. She too, he could see, was thinking about what had happened at the “park.”
The half-breed looked at Richard with a good deal of severity. “Ay, those men!... Here was this gringo who had seemed such a good young man, and see how he was treating her little girl, her little Celinda! So he was no different from the others....”
The young engineer walked in without meeting Sebastiana’s eye, and found Elena in the drawing-room. She seemed to be expecting him.
He was about to sit down in an arm-chair, but she would have none of it.
“No, no, here beside me—so no one will hear us.”
And he sat down on the sofa beside her.
She was pale, and there was a hard expression in her eyes, as though she were still in the grip of recent and very disagreeable experiences. The fist-fight between Pirovani and Canterac now occupied second place in her thoughts. The thing that was in the very forefront of her mind was the image of Celinda with her up-raised whip. At that image she trembled with anger.
But Richard’s punctual arrival made her forget her resentment. So, he was glad to grant her request that he spend the evening with her.... She saw that he was looking somewhat uneasily at the doors leading into the room.
“No one will come in,” she reassured him. “My husband is in his room, a little upset by some bad news from home that he received today.... A family affair, that doesn’t much concern me.”
With a sudden softening in her voice she went on,