“She is so very ugly,” objected Giovanni, quietly.  He was still much agitated, but he answered his father mechanically.

“That is true—­they are all ugly, those Valdarni.  Besides, they are of Tuscan origin.  What do you say to the little Rocca girl?  She has great chic; she was brought up in England.  She is pretty enough.”

“I am afraid she would be extravagant.”

“She could spend her own money then; it will be sufficient.”

“It is better to be on the safe side,” said Giovanni.  Suddenly he changed his position, and again looked at his father.  “I am sorry we always quarrel about this question,” he said.  “I do not really want to marry, but I wish to oblige you, and I will try.  Why do we always come to words over it?”

“I am sure I do not know,” said the Prince, with a pleasant smile.  “I have such a diabolical temper, I suppose.”

“And I have inherited it,” answered Don Giovanni, with a laugh that was meant to be cheerful.  “But I quite see your point of view.  I suppose I ought to settle in life by this time.”

“Seriously, I think so, my son.  Here is to your future happiness,” said the old gentleman, touching his glass with his lips.

“And here is to our future peace,” returned Giovanni, also drinking.

“We never really quarrel, Giovanni, do we?” said his father.  Every trace of anger had vanished.  His strong face beamed with an affectionate smile that was like the sun after a thunderstorm.

“No, indeed,” answered his son, cordially.  “We cannot afford to quarrel; there are only two of us left.”

“That is what I always say,” assented the Prince, beginning to eat the orange he had carefully peeled since he had grown calm.  “If two men like you and me, my boy, can thoroughly agree, there is nothing we cannot accomplish; whereas if we go against each other—­”

“Justitia non fit, coelum vero ruet,” suggested Giovanni, in parody of the proverb.

“I am a little rusty in my Latin, Giovanni,” said the old gentleman.

“Heaven is turned upside down, but justice is not done.”

“No; one is never just when one is angry.  But storms clear the sky, as they say up at Saracinesca.”

“By the bye, have you heard whether that question of the timber has been settled yet?” asked Giovanni.

“Of course—­I had forgotten.  I will tell you all about it,” answered his father, cheerfully.  So they chatted peacefully for another half-hour; and no one would have thought, in looking at them, that such fierce passions had been roused, nor that one of them felt as though his death-warrant had been signed.  When they separated, Giovanni went to his own rooms, and locked himself in.

He had assumed an air of calmness which was not real before he left his father.  In truth he was violently agitated.  He was as fiery as his father, but his passions were of greater strength and of longer duration; for his mother had been a Spaniard, and something of the melancholy of her country had entered into his soul, giving depth and durability to the hot Italian character he inherited from his father.  Nor did the latter suspect the cause of his son’s sudden change of tone in regard to the marriage.  It was precisely the difference in temperament which made Giovanni incomprehensible to the old Prince.