“You would not really send her to the convent!”

“I will certainly not let her live under my roof, if she stays out all night without giving a satisfactory account of herself.”

“But her mother—­”

“Her mother is no better than she should be,” observed the Baron virtuously, by way of answer.

The Baroness was very much disturbed.  She had been delighted to be looked upon as a sort of providence to the distressed great, and had looked forward to the social importance of being regarded as a second mother to Donna Sabina Conti.  She had hoped to make a good match for her, and to shine at the wedding; she had dreamed of marrying the girl to Malipieri, who was such a fine fellow, and would be so rich some day that he might be trapped into taking a wife without a dowry.

These castles in the air were all knocked to pieces by the Baron’s evident determination to get rid of Sabina.

“I thought you liked the girl,” said the Baroness in a tone of disappointment.

Volterra stuck out both his feet and crossed his hands on his stomach, after his manner, smoking vigorously.  Then, with his cigar in one corner of his mouth, he laughed out of the other, and assumed a playful expression.

“I do not like anybody but you, my darling,” he said, looking at the ceiling.  “Nobody in the whole wide world!  You are the deposited security.  All the other people are the floating circulation.”

He seemed pleased with this extraordinary view of mankind, and the Baroness smiled at her faithful husband.  She rarely understood what he was doing, and hardly ever guessed what he meant to do, but she was absolutely certain of his conjugal fidelity, and he gave her everything she wanted.

“The other people,” he said, “are just notes, and nothing else.  When a note is damaged or worn out, you can always get a new one at the bank, in exchange for it.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, my dear.  That is very clever.”

“It is very true,” said the Baron.  “The Conti family consists chiefly of damaged notes.”

He had not moved his cigar from the corner of his mouth to speak.

“Yes, my dear,” answered the Baroness meekly, and when she thought of her last interview with the dowager Princess, she was obliged to admit the fitness of the simile.

“The only one of them at all fit to remain in circulation,” he continued, “was this girl.  If she stays out all night she will be distinctly damaged, too.  Then you will have to pass her off to some one else, as one does, you know, when a note is doubtful.”

“The cook can generally change them,” observed the Baroness irrelevantly.

“I do not think she is coming home,” said the Baron, much more to the point.  “I hope she will!  After all, if she does not, you yourself say that she is quite safe with this Signor Sassi—­”

“I did not say that she would be safe from gossip afterwards, did I?”