"Not a word, Sandro."
"Nothing to be said, eh? What does she think, though? Oh, you know!
You've got your wits about you. Don't take to considering my feelings at
this time of day."
Now the old woman smiled too.
"I'm sorry you're done for, Sandro," she said. "So's your wife, I'll be
bound."
"You both love me so much?" he sneered.
"We've always understood one another," said Aunt Maria.
"I tell you, I love my wife." Aunt Maria made no remark. "And you both
think I'm done for? Well, we'll see!"
Aunt Maria looked up with a gleam of new interest in her sharp eyes, so
like the eyes of the man on the bed. Quisante met her glance and
understood it; it appealed at once to his malice and to his vanity; it
was a foretaste of the wonder he would raise and the applause he would
win, if he determined to face the price that might have to be paid for
them. He had listened with exasperated impatience to kind Lady Mildmay's
pleadings with him, to her motherly insisting on perfect rest for his
mind, and to her pathetically hopeful picture of the new interests and
the new pleasure he would find in days of rest and peace, with his wife
tenderly looking after him.
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