Is it not so? She cannot live alone.
She was not meant by God to be a single woman, or a widow woman.
There is a saying in my tongue, 'She who is born beautiful is born
married.' I terribly fear that somebody else will come."
"But what about your ambitions--to wed an heiress and claim the
title and the territory of your vanished forbears?"
Doria swept his hands to right and left with a great gesture, as
though casting away his former hopes.
"It is fate," he said. "I planned my life without love. I had never
loved and never wanted to. I guessed that love would appear after I
had married money and earned the necessary means and leisure to
love. But now all is changed. The arrow has sped. There has come the
spirit simpatica instead of the necessary rich woman. Now I do not
want the rich woman but only she who wakens my passion, adoration,
worship. Life has nothing in it but Madonna--English Jenny. What are
castles and titles--pomp and glory--when weighed against her? Dust,
padron mio, all dust!"
"And what about her, Giuseppe?"
"Her heart is hidden; but there is that in her eyes that tells me to
hope.
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