CHAPTER III A DREAM REALISED
The following afternoon Mario, on horseback, appeared at the villa and said he had stopped to accompany the Barbiondi in their ride to the Social Dairy. It was a proffer Donna Beatrice could not regard with favour. From the first the trip across the river had seemed to her a project of questionable taste; but now that it was to include the company of a man in whom Hera had betrayed a “scandalous interest,” it stood in her mind as a distinctly improper proceeding. Drawing her brother aside, she said as much to him while they waited for the horses to be brought from the stables.
But Don Riccardo failed to view the affair in that light. He was glad to see Forza, and glad of the opportunity the three-mile ride afforded for a chat with the son of his old comrad
