“I haven’t dared say anything before, Marquesa, but now I feel that I must.... This frame is unworthy of your beauty and elegance....”
He gave a depreciative glance about at the room and its furnishings.
“If you like, my house is at your disposal from tomorrow on. It is yours, marquesa. I can live in the house of one of my employees.”
Elena, for some reason, did not betray great astonishment. One might have said that she had been expecting this offer for a long time, or even that she had been subtly suggesting it to the contractor. However, she went through various gestures of protest, at the same time smiling at Pirovani, and letting her glance rest caressingly on him.
Finally she weakened before his arguments, and promised to consider the suggestion and consult her husband about it; she could not decide alone....
While Robledo and Watson were at work the next day, she kept her promise.
In spite of the submissiveness with which Torre Bianca usually accepted his wife’s suggestions, he indicated in no uncertain terms that this particular one scandalized him. Certainly he could not accept Pirovani’s generosity!
“What will people think of his giving up his own house to us? Everyone knows that he takes such enjoyment in it!”
No; he shook his head emphatically. Besides, all his class feeling awoke at the thought of being under obligations to a man, for whom he felt no dislike, it is true, but whose tastes he considered rather vulgar.
But Elena became irritable.