It was perfectly clear by this time that he wished Sabina to leave the house as soon as possible, and that he would take the first opportunity of obliging her to do so.  Even if his wife had dared to interfere, it would have been quite useless, for she knew him to be capable of hinting to the girl herself that she was no longer welcome.  Sabina was very proud, and she would not stay under the roof an hour after that.

“I did not suggest that you should bring her here,” Volterra continued presently.  “Please remember that.  I simply did not object to her coming.  That was all the share I had in it.  In any case I should have wished her to leave us before we go away for the summer.”

“I had not understood that,” answered the Baroness resignedly.  “I had hoped that she might come with us.”

“She has settled the matter for herself, my dear.  After this extraordinary performance, I must really decline to be responsible for her any longer.”

It was characteristic of his methods that when he had begun to talk over the matter before dinner, she had not been able to guess at all how he would ultimately look at it, and that he only let her know his real intention by degrees.  Possibly, he had only wished to gain time to think it over.  She did not know that he had asked Malipieri to leave the Palazzo Conti, and if she had, it might not have occurred to her that there was any connection between that and his desire to get rid of Sabina.  His ways were complicated, when they were not unpleasantly direct, not to say brutal.

But the Baroness was much more human, and had grown fond of the girl, largely because she had no daughter of her own, and had always longed to have one.  Ambitious women, if they have the motherly instinct, prefer daughters to sons.  One cannot easily tell what a boy may do when he grows up, but a girl can be made to do almost anything by her own mother, or to marry almost any one.  The Baroness’s regret for losing Sabina took the form of confiding to her husband what she had hoped to do for the girl.

“I am very sorry,” she said, “but if you wish her to go, she must leave us.  Of late, I had been thinking that we might perhaps marry her to that clever Malipieri.”

The Baron smiled thoughtfully, took his cigar from his lips at last, and looked at his wife.

“To Malipieri?” he asked, as if not quite understanding the suggestion.

“Yes, I am sure he would make her a very good husband.  He evidently admires her, too.”

“Possibly.  I never thought of it.  But she has no dowry.  That is an objection.”

“He will be rich some day.  Is he poor now?”

“No.  Not at all.”

“And she certainly likes him very much.  It would be a very good match for her.”

“Admirable.  But I do not think we need trouble ourselves with such speculations, since she is going to leave us so soon.”

“I shall always take a friendly interest in her,” said the Baroness, “wherever she may be.”