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All this was strictly true, and without further words she drove away to the Villino Barini, the brougham Severi had hired having already disappeared.
In this way she could not fail to see any quick change in the other's features. 'It is about Captain Severi, she said very distinctly, 'Ugo, as we call him the brother of that poor Giovanni who was murdered by savages in Africa.
The Mother Superior and the surgeon looked at each other rather blankly. 'Shall I die any sooner if I am starved? asked Giovanni almost roughly. Pieri began to explain the danger, but Severi at once grew more impatient. 'I know all that, he said, 'and I have told you my decision. I refuse to undergo an operation.
Sister Giovanna was not a saint yet, but she was winning her way as she gained ground in the struggle that had been forced upon her that night, so cruelly against her will, and having got the better of a temptation, her charity made her think that Giovanni Severi was farther from it than he was. Outward danger was near at hand, just when inward peril was passed.
One, a panegyric on Messalla, by an unknown author, is without any poetical merit, and only interesting as an average specimen of the amateur verse of the time when, in the phrase of Horace Populus calet uno Scribendi studio; pueri patresque severi Fronde comas vincti cenant et carmina dictant.
'I have seen the head nurse, she said, 'and you are to have the best room in the hospital, and all sorts of extra care. Ugo said something as the orderlies set down the chair, but almost at the same moment the Princess heard another voice. It was hard and cold, and did not match the words it spoke. 'You have been extremely kind, said Giovanni Severi.
Even then, if it had been clear to him that Giovanni Severi had made up his mind to marry Angela if he married at all, the Prince would have forced himself to bear agonies of boredom night after night, rather than entrust his daughter to the Marchesa; but such an idea had never entered his head, and he would have scouted the suggestion that Angela would ever dare to encourage a young man of whom he had not formally approved; and while she was meeting Giovanni almost daily, and dancing with him almost every evening, her father was slowly negotiating an appropriate marriage for her with the eldest son of certain friends who were almost as clerical and intransigent as himself.
Late on that night Giovanni got into the train that was to bring him to Rome before Madame Bernard would be ready to go out in the morning. Ugo Severi had been summoned by the Minister some days previously, and had been told that his brother was alive and coming home, and would lodge with him. Meanwhile Captain Ugo was put on his honour to say nothing of the matter to his friends.
Five years after Giovanni Severi had left Rome to join the ill-fated expedition in Africa, his brother Ugo obtained his captaincy and at the same time was placed in charge of the powder magazine at Monteverde, which Sister Giovanna could see in the distance from her latticed window.
Of the persons who had been witnesses of the scene, the Doctor and Ugo Severi could be trusted, and Princess Chiaromonte was too much afraid of Giovanni to brew gossip about his love-affair.
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