Her nature
was very unlike Bosio's, for she was able to drive her will into action,
as it were, and she could be sure that it would not turn and bend, and
disappoint her. But, for the present, she could do little more, and she
knew it. She could only hope that all things might go well, standing
ready at hand to throw her weight upon the scale-beam if fate alone
would not bear down the side that bore her safety. She had said all
that she could say to Veronica and to Bosio. Gregorio Macomer, her
husband, whom she hated and despised, but whom she was saving, or trying
to save, with herself, carried the effrontery of his sham-honest face
and cold manner through it all, unmoved, so far as she could see. Only
once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and
nervously, with a contraction of the face and a raising of the flat
upper lip that showed his sharp yellow teeth. No one noticed it but
Matilde, and it frightened her. But hitherto he had said nothing more
since he had first confided to her, as to his only possible helper, the
nature of his danger.
She had not reproached him with what he had done. The danger itself was
too great for that, and perhaps she had suspected its approach too long
to be surprised at his confession. She had paid very little attention to
the words he used; for, considering his nature, it was natural that he
should, even in such extremity, attempt to throw a side-light of dignity
upon his misfortunes, and should call crimes by names which suggested
honest dealing to the ordinary hearer, such as 'transference of title,'
'reinvestment,' 'realization,' and the like; all of which, in plain
language, meant that he had taken what was not his, without the shadow
of authorization from any one, in the quite indefensible way which the
law calls 'stealing.
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