Don Agostino, still holding Silvio's hand in his own, looked into his eyes for a moment without speaking.
"I have seen you to-day," he said, at length, "for the first time, but I trust you for your father's sake and also for your own. Yes, I will help you, if I can help you, to save Bianca Acorari from being sacrificed, for the sake of her mother, _anima benedetta_. But we must act prudently, and, first of all, I have a condition to make."
"Make any condition you please," said Silvio, eagerly, "so long as you do what I ask of you."
"Is your father aware that you are here--I mean, that you are in the neighborhood of Montefiano?" asked Don Agostino.
Silvio shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot tell you," he replied. "My sister, Giacinta, knows it, and she may have told him. My father, Don Agostino, told me that he had done all he could in asking the consent of the princess to an engagement between his son and her step-daughter, and that, as this consent had been unconditionally refused, I must in future manage my own affairs in my own way. This is what I am doing to the best of my ability."
Don Agostino smiled slightly. "I understand," he said. "Well, Silvio, my condition is that I should see your father and discuss the matter with him before doing anything here. He will give you a good character, I have no doubt, and will assure me that you would make Bianca Acorari a good husband. I owe it to--well, you know now to whom, to make this condition."
Silvio smiled. "Is that all, _reverendo_?" he asked. "It is a condition very easily carried out," he added.
"We will go to Rome, you and I, to-morrow," said Don Agostino, "and for to-night you will stop with me here. In the evening, when it is cooler, we will go to Civitacastellana, and we will bring your things back with us. No; I am doing you no kindness--I am doing a kindness to myself. As I told you before, it is not often that I have a friend to talk to at Montefiano, and in this case, well--"
Don Agostino did not complete his sentence. His gaze fixed itself upon the cabinet before him, and Silvio understood all that he had left unsaid.
Although Rome is supposed to be abandoned during the months of August and September by all who can afford the time and the money to leave it, there is always a certain number of people who from choice remain within its walls throughout the summer, declaring, not without reason, that the heat is felt far less in the vast, thick-walled palaces than in country villas and jerry-built hotels.