While his clear baritone filled the room and Hera played the accompaniment the feelings of Don Riccardo were stirred deeply. From his chair by the wall he looked sadly upon his daughter and his old comrade’s son, and hoped, for her sake, that what might have given him gladness at one time would not happen now. The words of his sister had moved him more than he let her know. What if Mario Forza had come into her heart? What if the marriage to which she was to go should prove the funeral of a true love? What if that were added to the price she was going to pay for helping her father? His impulse was to take her in his arms, tell her to accept any happiness that destiny had to offer, and defy the issue whatever it might be. Instead, he rang for a glass of cognac. When Hera had sung a romance of old Siena Don Riccardo asked Mario about that “idealistic experiment,” the Social Dairy, and learned that it was no longer an experiment, but a prosperous object lesson for those willing to listen to the New Democracy. Mario told them a little of the life of the place, and Don Riccardo suggested that they all go and see for themselves. “It would give me pleasure,” Mario assured him. “I should like to go very much,” Hera said. “Then we shall visit you to-morrow.” Don Riccardo decided, with an enthusiasm which Aunt Beatrice did not share. 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 comrade. His expectation in regard to the chat, however, was not realised, for what Aunt Beatrice pronounced a shocking display of indiscretion on the part of her niece occurred before they had reached the Bridge of Speranza. When the cavalcade, after a brisk trot, had dropped into a walk, Hera and Mario fell behind and rode side by side. And in the rest of the journey Donna Beatrice could not see that they made any appreciable effort to lessen the distance separating them from the others.