o
lovely a creature would become his daughter, and set some youth and charm
around his invalid's arm-chair. He had always worshipped beauty, and
would have had no other love than woman, if his country had not seized
upon the best part of him. And Benedetta on her side loved him, revered
him, constantly coming up to spend long hours with him, sharing his poor
little room, which at those times became resplendent with all the divine
grace that she brought with her. With her fresh breath near him, the pure
scent she diffused, the caressing womanly tenderness with which she
surrounded him, he lived anew. But, immediately afterwards, what a
frightful drama and how his heart had bled at his inability to reconcile
the husband and the wife! He could not possibly say that his son was in
the wrong in desiring to be the loved and accepted spouse. At first
indeed he had hoped to soften Benedetta, and throw her into Luigi's arms.
But when she had confessed herself to him in tears, owning her old love
for Dario, and her horror of belonging to another, he realised that she
would never yield. And a whole year had then gone by; he had lived for a
whole year imprisoned in his arm-chair, with that poignant drama
progressing beneath him in those luxurious rooms whence no sound even
reached his ears. How many times had he not listened, striving to hear,
fearing atrocious quarrels, in despair at his inability to prove still
useful by creating happiness. He knew nothing by his son, who kept his
own counsel; he only learnt a few particulars from Benedetta at intervals
when emotion left her defenceless; and that marriage in which he had for
a moment espied the much-needed alliance between old and new Rome, that
unconsummated marriage filled him with despair, as if it were indeed the
defeat of every hope, the final collapse of the dream which had filled
his life. And he himself had ended by desiring the divorce, so unbearable
had become the suffering caused by such a situation.

"Ah! my friend!" he said to Pierre; "never before did I so well
understand the fatality of certain antagonism, the possibility of working
one's own misfortune and that of others, even when one has the most
loving heart and upright mind!"

But at that moment the door again opened, and this time, without
knocking, Count Luigi Prada came in. And after rapidly bowing to the
visitor, who had risen, he gently took hold of his father's hands and
felt them, as if fearing that th