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"What!" she demanded directly. "Didn't he " "Yes," Sanviano replied, "he did! He wants to marry Lavinia." Lavinia half rose, with a horrified protest; Gheta seemed suddenly turned to stone; the knitting fell unheeded from the marchesa's lap. Sanviano spread out his hands helplessly. "Well," he demanded, "what could I do?... A man with Orsi's blameless character and the Orsi banks!"
The Sanvianos had only a landaulet, no longer in its first condition; and Lavinia wondered why Gheta, who adored ease, had been so long in securing for herself such comforts as Orsi's victoria. They swept smoothly on rubber tires into the Lungarno and rapidly approached her home.
At least then she would have some one with whom to recall the pleasant trifles of past years. She would have liked to ask Anna Mantegazza, too; but this she knew was impossible Gheta had not forgiven Anna for her part on the night that had resulted in Orsi's proposal for Lavinia. She wondered, more obscurely, whether Abrego y Mochales was still in Florence.
She wished, now, that she had been sitting at the front of the window the object of his unsparing intense gaze. She realized that he was extremely handsome, and contrasted his erect slim carriage with Orsi's thick slouched shoulders. The latter interrupted her look, misinterpreted it, and said something about candy from Giacosa's.
She wished to be justifiably annoyed by them, or him; but there was absolutely no cause. Cesare Orsi's character and disposition were alike beyond reproach transparent and heroically optimistic. Since their marriage she had been insolent, she had been both captious and continuously indifferent, without unsettling the determined eager good-nature with which he met her moods.
Apparently she could not get through it to wound him as she would have liked; and she secretly wondered. He was prodigal in his generosity the stores of the Via Roma were prepared to empty themselves at her desire. Cesare Orsi's wife was a figure of importance in Naples.
"Do you talk to me Abrego y Mochales?" A dark tide of passion, visible even in the night, flooded Orsi's countenance. "Leave!" he insisted, "Or I'll have you flung into the bay." A deep silence followed, in which Lavinia could hear the stir of the water against the walls below. A sharp fear entered her heart, a new dread of the Spaniard.
The rest of the story I will tell in Count Orsi's own words. He wrote his account in "Fraser's Magazine," 1879: "The wrath of the major was extreme. There was danger in his anger. I consulted Persigny on the advisability of letting him go on shore, with the distinct understanding that he should be accompanied by me or by Charles Thélin."
The way grew steep and she rested a hand on Orsi's arm. Anna, Lavinia and the Flower of Spain followed together, until the first moved forward to join the leaders. Lavinia's gaze was obscured by a sort of warm mist; she clasped her hands to keep them from trembling. In a narrow flagged turn Mochales brushed her shoulder. He scarcely moved his eyes from Gheta's back.
He twisted a cigarette with lightning-like rapidity and only one hand. Together they looked at Orsi's broad ungainly back, and the bull-fighter's lips tightened, exposing a glimmer of his immaculate teeth. They passed a neat whitewashed cottage, where an old couple stood bowing abjectly, and came on a series of long pale-brown buildings and walls. "The stables and barn," Lavinia explained.
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