Gregorio had gone out immediately after the midday breakfast.

Bosio was glad of that.

He had not seen his brother since the previous evening, and he did not wish to see him alone.

There were monstrous wrongs on both sides, and it was better to pretend mutual ignorance, and keep up the ghastly farce, pretending that nothing was the matter.

The very smallest incautious word would crack the swaying bubble that was blown to bursting with hell's breath.
Bosio had entered the main apartments in order to inquire for Veronica, had passed through the long outer hall with its red walls, its matted floor and its great table covered with green baize, to the antechamber within, where, with some ostentation, as Bosio had always thought, Gregorio had hung up the escutcheon with the quartered arms of Macomer and Serra, flanked by half a dozen big old family portraits on either side, opposite the three windows.