She could have found fifty rooms for guests in the
castle, but there were certainly not three which were now sufficiently
furnished to be habitable as bedrooms. She had changed the face of the
town in three months, but she had not at all improved her own
establishment. There were foresters and men occupied upon the estates
who came and went as their work required, and there were generally four
or five of them in the house; but she was served by women, and there was
not a man-servant in the place. She had only five horses in her stable.
She glanced at the black frock she wore and smiled, realizing for the
first time what Elettra had meant by protesting against her wearing it
any longer.
But none of the details were of a nature to check such a woman in
anything she really wished. If she chose to be waited on by women and to
wear old clothes, that was her affair and concerned no one else. As for
a little furniture more or less, she could get all she wanted from
Naples in three or four days.
CHAPTER XXI.
Veronica had little doubt but that her invitation would be accepted by
the Della Spina. Had she been as worldly wise, as she was practical in
most things, she would have had no doubts at all, though she would have
hesitated long before writing to the Duchessa. For, of two things, one
or the other must happen. Gianluca must either die, or not die; in the
first case the least which his family could do would be to give him the
opportunity of seeing the woman he loved, before his death, and, in the
second, such an invitation on Veronica's part was almost equivalent to
consenting to marry him if he recovered.
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