I cannot describe how Miss Susan listened to all this, with an impatience which reached the verge of the intolerable. To hear them taking it all calmly for granted--calculating on Herbert’s death as an essential preliminary of which they were quite sure. But she kept silence with a painful effort, and kept in the background, trembling with the struggle to restrain herself. It was best that she should take no part, say nothing, but leave the issue as far as she could to Providence. To Providence! the familiar word came to her unawares; but what right had she to appeal to Providence--to trust in Providence in such a matter. She quaked, and withdrew a little further still, leaving the ground clear. Surely old Austin would exercise his authority--and could overcome this young rebel without her aid!
The old man waited for an answer, but got none. He was a good man in his way, but he had been accustomed all his life to have his utterances respected, and he did not understand the profane audacity which declined even to reply to him. After a moment’s interval he resumed, eager, but yet damped in his confidence:
“Le petit! where is he? I may see him, may not I?”
Miss Susan rose at once to ring the bell for the child, but to her amazement she was stopped by Giovanna.
“Wait a little,” she said, “I am the mother. I have the best right. That is acknowledged? No one has any right over him but me.”
Miss Susan quailed before the glance of those eyes, which were so full of meaning. There was something more in the words than mere self-assertion. There was once more a gleam of malicious enjoyment, almost revengeful. What wrong had Giovanna to revenge upon Miss Susan, who had given her the means of asserting herself--who had changed her position in the world altogether, and given her a standing-ground which she never before possessed? The mistress of Whiteladies, so long foremost and regnant, sat down again behind their backs with a sense of humiliation not to be described. She left the two strangers to fight out their quarrel without any interference on her part. As for Giovanna, she had no revengeful meaning whatever; but she loved to feel and show her power.
“Assuredly, ma fille,” said the old man, who was in her power too, and felt it with not much less dismay than Miss Susan.