Vere's gay simplicity had jumped to
the eyes. But now she, too, was becoming something of a mystery.
He traced it all to Emilio, and was hot with a curiosity that was
linked closely with his passion.
Should he go to see Emilio? He considered the question and resolved
not to do so. He would try to be patient until the night of the dinner
on the island. He would be birbante, would play the fox, as Emilio
surely had done. The Panacci temper should find out that one member of
the family could control it, when such control served his purpose.
He was on fire with a lust for action as he made his resolutions.
Vere's coolness to him, even avoidance of him, had struck hammer-like
blows upon his /amour propre/. He saw her now--yes, he saw her--coming
down the stairs behind Peppina. Had they been together? Did they talk
together, the cold, the prudish Signorina Inglese--so he called Vere
now in his anger--and the former decoy of Maria Fortunata?
And then a horrible conception of Emilio's role in all this darted
into his mind, and for a moment he thought of Hermione as a blind
innocent, like his subservient mother, of Vere as a preordained
victim.
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