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Updated: May 4, 2025
Later, Gheta departed for a ball, together with the Marchese Sanviano to be dropped at his club and Lavinia was left alone. The scene in the court was repeated, but with less flourish than earlier in the evening. Gheta would be nominally in the charge of Anna Mantegazza; but Lavinia knew how laxly the American would hold her responsibility.
She wondered whether her father would buy her a dress by Verlat. "Honestly," Orsi murmured, "more beautiful than your " She stopped him with an impatient gesture, wondering what Mochales was saying to Gheta.
A slow flush spread over the other's countenance; she did not reply immediately and Lavinia would have given a great deal to unsay her period. "It isn't that," Gheta finally explained; "the family find that I am too expensive. You see, I haven't justified their hopes and they have been cutting down."
And if she had not been a model Catholic, and herself above the slightest moral question, even Mantegazza could not have carried her among his own circles. As it was, people flocked to her elaborate parties, torn between the hope of being amazed and the fear that they should furnish the hub of the occasion. Gheta and her hostess arrived later.
"What a shame that these things must be got at a price!" Lavinia glanced at her sharply; until the present moment that would have expressed her own attitude, but said by Gheta it seemed a little crude. It was, anyhow, painfully obvious, and she had no intention of showing Gheta the true state of her being.
But she knew instinctively that there would be no change in Mochales' attitude. He was in love with Gheta; blind to the rest of the world. She sat lost in a day-dream how different her life would have been, married to the bull-fighter! She would have become a part of the fierce Spanish crowds at the ring, traveled to South America, seen the people heap roses, jewels, upon her idol....
"It would be insanity." "Insanity," he agreed promptly. "Yet I can't permit myself to be the target for vile tongues." Lavinia abruptly left him and hurried to her sister's room. The door was locked; she knocked, but got no response. "Gheta," she called, low and urgently, "open at once! Your plans have gone dreadfully wrong. Gheta!" she said more sharply into the answering silence.
As if he had heard the pronouncement of his name the man in the cab turned sharply and looked up. Gheta was leaning out, and his gaze fastened upon her with a sudden and extraordinary intensity. Lavinia saw that her sister, without dissembling her interest, sat forward, statuesque and lovely.
Gheta's grief and their mother's anxiety at first seemed so foolishly disproportionate to their cause. Then a realization of what such an occurrence meant to Gheta dawned upon her. To an acknowledged beauty like Gheta Sanviano the marks of Time were an absolute tragedy; they threatened her on every plane of her being. "But when " Lavinia began.
Gheta had sharpened in being as well as in countenance to such a degree that Lavinia lost what natural affection for her sister she had retained. This, in a way, allied her with Cesare.
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