it may have been Monsignor. Yes, it must have been Monsignor."
The duke drew a freer breath. He knew that the Bishop of Sassovivo was friendly to Aurora.
The duchess sipped her tea and waited for a reply which did not come. She was half afraid to go on, but did so presently with a coolness which gave no sign of fear:
"It would be just the place for poor Cousin Clement and Paula. I have written this morning half promising it to them. I was sure that you would make no objection. They have got to leave Palazzo Fantini immediately. They could stay here till we find some employment which poor Clem could accept. He might be made secretary to some embassy somewhere. He writes a beautiful hand. In the mean time, though, they haven't a roof over their heads, and but few soldi in their pockets. With this apartment they can get along. They couldn't pay any rent; but Paula has enough for their household expenses. They ought to come at once,—in a month at farthest. I wish they were here now."
At her first words, D'Rubiera's face had colored deeply and his eyes emitted a flash; but he did not interrupt her, and she carefully avoided looking at him. She had found that a very good way of winning from him what he would rather not have granted was to assume that he had no objections to offer, and give him no opportunity to express any till he should have heard her whole argument and known that objections would disappoint and displease her. She had no desire to quarrel with him, though she believed that it would always be in her power to conciliate or command him.
When she had finished speaking there was a moment of silence. The duke stood motionless and with a look of firm resolution and suppressed anger. His wife put another lump of sugar in her tea, using her white fingers as sugar- tongs and petulantly brushing away a wasp that hung over the sugar-dish: "Horrible insect!—And so, you see, Roberto, this is the best thing that we can do. It would reflect on us if Clem and Paula had to stay in their house till they were driven out of it, or if they had to go from a palace to a common tenement-house. I hope that you will give Ronconi orders to see to the matter without delay. I believe there are some servants in the place. They might stay."
Though expecting concession, however reluctant, the lady did not yet lift her eyes. There was evidently a great unwillingness,—the long silence showed that,—and it would not do to be aware of it. But she looked up with a start at the first sound of her husband's voice, which evidently came through shut teeth.
"I have told you that the castle is not mine to give," he said, in a measured way that made every word drop like a stone.
He was looking down at her with an expression she had never met from him before,—cold, hard, and even threatening.
She was too frivolous and heartless to take warning. "I don't understand why it is not," she said pettishly. "If it is yours, it is yours; and there is no one in it now. The people who had it are all dead, except a girl, who is travelling in Spain. You don't expect a girl to keep house independently. No decent girl would do it. When this one marries, she will go where her husband lives. If she has any claim, or fancies she has any, on the castle, there is no reason why you should not tell your minister to ask her to release it,—for a while, at least. It is only to ask."
The duke was unwilling to think her sincere, and forced himself to give an explanation.
"In the first place, Laura," he said, "it is not the dukes of Cagliostro who have made the castle habitable, or thought of it as a fit place for a family to live in. It had been for centuries nothing but a ruin, full of lizards. The apartment was built, the place repaired, and the garden newly made by a Scotch painter who married in Sassovivo, and whose son was in his old age the friend
