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 attempt to undo it by making those two wolfish creatures more poisonously young Liana's enemies than ever."

"What?" she cried.

"Why, yes," he said calmly. "That was what you must have accomplished. Don't you see it?"

She looked at him almost fiercely. "I did exactly what you as much as told me to. You've just admitted you reproached me with giving the Bastoni a chance to think they were Arturo's rivals. Well, I snubbed Giuseppe, practically in Arturo's presence. Now you attack me for making him his enemy instead of his rival. No, I don't see it!"

"I'll try to make it clearer, Miss Ambler. The truth is, the Bastoni have the reputation of being pretty bad hats. You naturally wouldn't have known that; but there's no doubt of it; and there are quite a number of other bad hats in the place they come from and the villages between Raona and there. You know most of the landowners don't go to their own estates unless they're heavily armed and guarded by the carabinieri; it isn't altogether a safe neighbourhood except for foreigners like us—they let us alone because we increase the revenue. Well, the Bastoni know what their own reputation is; and that they're