XI.
WHEN the Señora bade Felipe good-night, she did not go to bed. After closing her door, she sat down to think what should be done about Ramona. It had been a hard task she had set herself, talking all the evening with Felipe without alluding to the topic uppermost in her mind. But Felipe was still nervous and irritable. She would not spoil his night's rest, she thought, by talking of disagreeable things. Moreover, she was not clear in her own mind what she wished to have done about Alessandro. If Ramona were to be sent away to the nuns, which was the only thing the Señora could think of as yet, there would be no reason for discharging Alessandro. And with him the Señora was by no means ready to part, though in her first anger she had been ready to dismiss him on the spot. As she pursued her reflections, the whole situation cleared itself in her mind; so easily do affairs fall into line, in the plottings and plannings of an arbitrary person, who makes in his formula no allowance for a human element which he cannot control.
Ramona should be sent in disgrace to the Sisters' School, to be a servant there for the rest of her life. The Señora would wash her hands of her forever. Even Father Salvierderra himself could not expect her any longer to keep such a shameless creature under her roof. Her sister's written instructions had provided for the possibility of just such a contingency. Going to a secret closet in the wall, behind a life-size statue of Saint Catharine, the Señora took out an
167
