"Who was it?" he inquired. "He resembles a juggler."
Lavinia elaborately masked her hot resentment at this fresh stupidity.
She must not, she felt, allow Orsi to discover her feeling for Abrego y
Mochales; that was a secret she must keep forever from the profane
world. She would die, perhaps at a terribly advanced age, with it
locked in her heart. But if Gheta married him she would go into a
convent.
"A bull-fighter, I believe," she said carelessly.
"In other words, a brute," Orsi continued. "Such men are not fit for
the society of--of your sister. One would think his mere presence would
make her ill.... Yet she seemed quite pleased."
"Strange!" Lavinia spoke with innocent eyes.
It was like turning a knife in her wound to agree apparently with
Cesare Orsi--rather, she wanted to laugh at him coldly and leave him
standing alone; but she must cultivate her defenses. There was, too, a
sort of negative pleasure in misleading the banker, a sort of torment
not unlike that enjoyed by the early martyrs.
Cesare Orsi regarded her with new interest and approbation.
"You're a sensible girl," he proclaimed; "and extremely pretty in the
bargain." He added this in an accent of profound surprise, as if she
had suddenly grown presentable under his eyes. "In some ways," he went
on, gathering conviction, "you are as handsome as Gheta."
"Thank you, Signor Orsi," Lavinia responded with every indication of a
modesty, which, in fact, was the indifference of a supreme contempt.
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