Carolina answered, pointing to the untouched wedding feast: “We have many sweets that will not keep. They will be of use to Father Nicodemo for his poor.” She could not resist sounding a stealthy note of triumph. A few hours before he would have answered, “The sweets will keep a week, and then I shall need them for my wedding feast.” But since the bout with Tomato his hope had waned steadily, just as the conviction had grown stronger that the banker’s case against Juno would be proved. Morose of spirit he sought his bed, sighing as he reflected how ruthlessly the events of the day had shattered his long-fondled dreams. CHAPTER XX A HOUSE DIVIDED A TRAIN for Jamaica next morning carried four anxious souls from Mulberry. In one car were Signori Di Bello and Tomato, in another Carolina and Armando. The banker had agreed to meet Armando at the country station; but the sculptor had given no hint that he would have Carolina in company, nor did either of the latter dream of finding Signor Di Bello with the banker. They all met on the station platform. At sight of Carolina her brother divined her state of mind. He knew that her presence meant the first advance of a revived era of meddling in his love affairs, and with the perversity of the ripe-aged swain he resented it as stoutly as though his own judgment about woman had not just been caught soundly napping. “You have come to see the husband of your brother’s bride, I suppose,” he said. “You are glad to be near to see me made a fool of, _neh_?” “No,” she answered; “I seek only the proofs that Casa Di Bello is not to be disgraced.” They climbed into a creaky, swaying stage that the banker hired to convey them to the iron villa. “It was you that said she was the Presidentessa,” broke out the signore, eying Armando on the opposite seat. “What the porcupine did you mean?” As the decrepit stage squeaked through the village, plunging and tossing on its feeble springs like a boat in a choppy sea, Armando gave the history of the Last Lady--the jugglery of the photographs, of which the banker had told him; his months of fruitless toil on the second Juno following a year lost on the first. “Ah, signore,” he added, yielding to a blank sense of desolation, “surely the evil eye has fallen upon me and I am doomed to fiasco.” “Body of a rhinoceros!” was Signor Di Bello’s first comment. Then he added, after an apparent mental struggle with the stubborn truth: “Yes; she has made grand trouble for you, but you shall not suffer. I will buy your Juno and the Peacock and--the other Juno, if only to smash it in a thousand pieces!” “Will you pay me back the Dogana, signore?” put in the banker, striking the hot iron. “I too have been ruined by the Last Lady.” “Excuse me, signore; you are old enough to know better.” “And so are you,” chirped Tomato, whereat Signor Di Bello held his tongue.