"Well," she said at last, "I will go with you, and do what you wish."
Marcantonio was very grateful. He felt that his young wife must have friends--young wives have so few--and he could desire no better friend for her than his sister, the model of all goodness, gentleness, and honour.
"Dearest sister," he said, "you are so good! And if you have much to do here, I can put off going for a day, you know. You can do your little errands in a day, can you not?"
"I might, perhaps," said she; "but must you not take some steps about all this land of yours--or of our uncle's? Do you realise what a position you have assumed, my dear boy? From this day you are absolutely master of the estate, if you like,--but you are also absolutely responsible for the payment of the income. You positively must see the lawyers about it, and you may as well see them at once."
"It is not the whole income of the place that he takes," remarked Marcantonio.
"That makes no difference," said Diana. "If you were to have it all, it would be the same. You are bound to take care of it. Your own lawyer knows nothing about this transaction. You may not be in Rome again for three months. Make some provision for your absence. Who is to collect your rents, in the first place?"
"I suppose somebody would," said Marcantonio laughing. "But you have a much better head for business than I, Diana mia. Perhaps you are right."
"You manage things very well, caro mio, so long as they are under your hand. But you hate to go and look after business when you want to be doing something else."
"After all," he argued, "when a man is just married"--
"He ought to be specially careful of his affairs, for his children's sake," interrupted Donna Diana with remarkable good sense.
She wanted a day or two in Rome, and she thought he was really remiss in his management. She had rather a contempt for a man who cast everything to the winds in order to be one more day with his wife. She did not believe that his wife would have done as much for him.
The end of it was that he agreed to stay a little longer, at least one day more than he had at first proposed; and he wrote an affectionate letter to Leonora, half loving, half playful, explaining his position, and telling her of his sister's coming, that she might be ready to receive her. He added that he hoped to see them very affectionate and intimate, for that Diana was the best friend his wife could have. If Batiscombe had wanted to make a friendship between two women he would not have gone about it in that way. Marcantonio was very young and inexperienced, though he was also very good and honest. His sister saw both sides of his character and understood them. Leonora saw, but only understood the honesty of him. His inexperience she supposed to be a sort of paternal, philistine, prosaic, humdrum capacity for harping on unimportant things, and she already felt the most distinct aversion for that phase of his nature.