Not a muscle of his face quivered as he looked quietly into the Contessa’s eyes.  He was quite sure that she did not suspect him of having been in any way concerned in Marcello’s temporary disappearance.

“Suppose him to be as strong as the strongest,” Maddalena answered.  “Put aside the question of his health.  There is something else that seems to me quite as important.”

“The moral side?” Corbario smiled gravely.  “My dear lady, you and I know the world, don’t we?  We do not expect young men to be saints!”

Maddalena, who had not always been a saint, returned his look coldly.

“Let us leave the saints out of the discussion,” she said, “unless we speak of Marcello’s mother.  She was one, if any one ever was.  I believe you loved her, and I know that I did, and I do still, for she is very real to me, even now.  Don’t you owe something to her memory?  Don’t you know how she would have felt if she could have met her son the other night, as I met him, looking as he looked?  Don’t you know that it would have hurt her as nothing else could?  Think a moment!”

She paused, waiting for his answer and watching his impenetrable face, that did not change even when he laughed, that could not change, she thought; but she had not seen him by Marcello’s bedside at the hospital, when the mask had been gone for a few seconds.  It was there now, in all its calm stillness.

“You may be right,” he answered, almost meekly, after a little pause.  “I had not looked at it in that light.  You see, I am not a very sensitive man, and I was brought up rather roughly.  My dear wife went to the other extreme, of course.  No one could really be what she wished to make Marcello.  He felt that himself, though I honestly did all I could to make him act according to his mother’s wishes.  But now that she is gone—­” he broke off, and was silent a moment.  “You may be right,” he repeated, shaking his head thoughtfully.  “You are a very good woman, and you ought to know.”

She leaned back in her chair, and looked at him in silence, wondering whether she was not perhaps doing him a great injustice; yet his voice rang false to her ear, and the old conviction that he had never loved his wife came back with increased force and with the certainty that he had been playing a part for years without once breaking down.

“I will join Marcello, and see what I can do,” he said.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Oh, yes!  He keeps me informed of his movements; he is very good about writing.  You know how fond of each other we are, too, and I am sure he will be glad to see me.  He is back in Italy by this time.  He was going to Siena.  We were to have met in Rome in about a month, to go down to San Domenico together, but I will join him at once.”

“If you find that—­that young person with him, what shall you do?”

“Send her about her business, of course,” answered Folco promptly.