It's no
good. You must go."
"Go where? Do sit down. What's happened?" This
outburst of violence from his elegant ladylike mother pained
him dreadfully. He had not known that it was in her.
"She won't accept--won't accept the letter as final. You
must go to Monteriano!"
"I won't!" he shouted back. "I've been and I've
failed. I'll never see the place again. I hate Italy."
"If you don't go, she will."
"Abbott?"
"Yes. Going alone; would start this evening. I offered
to write; she said it was 'too late!' Too late! The child,
if you please--Irma's brother--to live with her, to be brought
up by her and her father at our very gates, to go to school
like a gentleman, she paying. Oh, you're a man! It doesn't
matter for you. You can laugh. But I know what people say;
and that woman goes to Italy this evening."
He seemed to be inspired. "Then let her go! Let her
mess with Italy by herself. She'll come to grief somehow.
Italy's too dangerous, too--"
"Stop that nonsense, Philip. I will not be disgraced by
her. I WILL have the child. Pay all we've got for it. I
will have it."
"Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with
what she doesn't understand! Look at this letter! The man
who wrote it will marry her, or murder her, or do for her
somehow. He's a bounder, but he's not an English bounder.
He's mysterious and terrible. He's got a country behind him
that's upset people from the beginning of the world.
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