"Come here, then! Hush! hush! hush! She won't be naughty any more. Hush! Mamma does love her! That's my own pet! There, there! Listen! Here comes Papa!" At this suggestion Caterina calmed herself by magic. Then to Regina a thing she had already suspected was clearly revealed, and she marvelled that she had ever doubted it. Caterina loved her father more than she loved her mother! With that wondrous instinct of a babe, Caterina felt that he was the kinder, the weaker, the more affectionate of the two; that he loved her more blindly, more passionately, than her mother loved her. Consequently, she preferred him. Regina was not jealous, nor did she question if this proved her too much or too little a mother. But that morning, in the whirl of sad and ugly things which veiled her soul, she felt an unexpected light, she felt that supreme sentiment of pity, which in the dissolving of all her dreams sustained her like a powerful wing, spread, not over herself, not over Antonio, but over their child. They two were already dead to life, corrupted by their own errors; but Caterina was the future, the living seed which had had its birth among withered leaves. The soil around it must be cleared. And for the first time she thought that, not for herself in a last vanity of sacrifice, not for him whose soul was eternally stained, but for the child, she _must_ draw Antonio out of the mire. He came back by the 7.20 train, and had scarcely time to dress, swallow his coffee, and run to the office. At the midday meal he told of the wonders of Albano, of the villa, of the night on the lake. "Such flowers! such roses! Marvellous! I lost the last train because I had meant to take it at Castel Gandolfo, and Madame and Marianna insisted on leaving the carriage and walking part of the way. You can't imagine the splendour--the moonlight. I was thinking of you the whole time! I didn't wire, because it was too late." "Is any one blaming you?" asked Regina, absently. "You were angry, Regina?" "I? Why?" Antonio must have seen that some distress was clouding her spirit, for he began to talk volubly, trying to distract her. He complained of the Princess. "What a nuisance she is! She made me take this journey all for the sake of that old fur. 'Beg pardon?'" he went on, mimicking her. "'It's not for its money value, but because it's a precious remembrance----' Perhaps Georges Sand gave it to her! She talked of nothing else. Even Marianna couldn't stand it, and proposed to skin the furrier if he didn't send it back at once." "Did you sleep at the villa?" asked Regina, who was not listening. "Well, she couldn't well send me anywhere else!" "Oh, of course not!" said Regina, with evident sarcasm. And, without raising her eyes from her plate, she went on, "Is Madame a Russian?" "Why, yes--didn't you know it?" answered Antonio, quickly. He said no more, but his voice had shaken with a scarce perceptible vibration, which Regina did not fail to observe.