“Really it was most disgraceful of Violet to flirt with young Capponi as she did last night!” exclaimed Mary mischievously, upholding her father’s view.
“I did not!” protested the barrister’s daughter. “You know I didn’t, Mary!”
“He’ll be proposing next Monday when he comes again to dinner, and you’ll be the Marchesa Capponi,” Mary said, spreading out her skirts and bowing with mock obeisance.
Her father, full of good-humour now that the terror of those anxious hours had passed, rose, and placing his hand kindly on Violet’s shoulder, assured her that his words were not meant to be taken seriously; for he saw the girl’s indignation was rising, and that she resented being accused of flirtation before the two daughters of the Genoese merchant.
They all gossiped together for some time, until presently Mary went forth, as usual, to accompany her father on his evening stroll through the pine woods.
When alone, His Excellency was the first to speak, explaining to her all that Vito Ricci had related over the telephone.
“Then the crisis is prevented,” she remarked, in a strange, mechanical voice, he thought. He had expected her to betray surprise and joy, but, on the contrary, she received the information of his escape with an inertness which surprised him. “It must have been the letter handed to the Socialist deputy,” she added.
“Without doubt,” he remarked. “But how annoyed and disappointed Angelo must be at the failure of his scheme just at the very moment when his triumph was assured.”
“I expect so,” his daughter said, walking slowly at his side, her eyes fixed upon the ground. Her father had been saved at the cost of her own happiness, her own life. But would that man adhere to his compact? she wondered. Was the crisis only postponed until after her marriage—until after she had given herself to him in exchange for her father’s life? She knew too well that he would never face exposure; she knew, alas! that, like many before him, he would rather take his own life than bear the brunt of those scurrilous and unscrupulous attacks. He had more than once told her so—not directly, of course, but in language that was unmistakable.
She had had no confidence in Dubard since the night when he had examined the safe in the library. He would, she felt assured, play her false. His ingenuity was unparalleled, and he was, moreover, a friend of her father’s bitterest enemy. Therefore, what had she to hope from him? The attack upon the Minister and his methods was only postponed in order to lure her and her father into a sense of security. What was to prevent the allegation being made after she had given herself to him in marriage? As she walked there in the evening light beneath the high dark pines she fully realised the insecurity of the position. In the end the man Borselli must triumph, and she, with her father, would be equally a victim.