Yes, the combat between Antonio Amati and Carlo Cavalcanti was secret but obstinate, subtle but very acute. The old man had great power over his daughter; one might say he bent her will to his with an imperious, fascinating glance. He did not wish anyone else should get power over her; he feared to lose his influence. From paternal self-love, that exaggerated jealousy that hates from the beginning those who love their children, or some other mysterious reason, he set himself between his daughter and Antonio Amati when he saw the latter's sway might increase. When they were alone they never mentioned him--on her part out of obedience, for she always waited for her father to speak first, and he never named the doctor. The maiden was sensitive about this reserve, and got more and more self-contained, already seeing the first sad symptoms of the struggle.
Amati had written her just one letter; she treasured it and read it over and over, because it breathed of honesty, peace, strength, which were altogether wanting in her wretched, disturbed life, with its saddening past, hurrying on to a dark future. She bent her head, even now feeling that love could not save her, for she seemed tied by a sad fatality, by a charm cast over her life. When Antonio Amati came back in the evening, determined not to yield to this extraordinary tyranny of the father's, she looked up timidly at them; the false cordiality and vivacity with which the men greeted each other encouraged her. A pink colour came to her pale cheeks; but if her father frowned or the doctor's voice got hard she became pale and alarmed again. Her father had carefully hidden that he got pecuniary help from the doctor; he was ashamed to confess this loss of dignity his ruling passion had dragged him into. The good, pale maiden took courage when she saw the healthy, hearty hand held out to her to pull her out of her unhealthy surroundings; but when her father abruptly, roughly put away that hand, she trembled; she did not ask why. Her mother had pined away too resignedly for her to dare to rebel. Only she just lived from day to day without going into the disagreements between her father and Amati, letting herself go to the sweetness of the new feeling, trying to escape from her bitter presentiments. But he, a man of science and much given to observation, finding her father's conduct incomprehensible, tried to curb himself so as to tear the secret out of Formosa's heart. He knew the gambling fever devoured him. Sometimes, when he was with Bianca Maria in the drawing-room, two or three of the Cabalist group would come in to ask for the Marquis. He got rather embarrassed. Once he shut himself up in his study with them; voices reached them from there, deadened and indistinct. Twice he went out with them, the doctor's presence making him impatient and nervous.