And this was all the difference she would
acknowledge. So she ruled her life according to money. Her supreme
passion was to be mistress rather than servant, her supreme aspiration
for her children was that in the end they might be masters and
not servants.
Paolo was untouched by all this. For him there was some divinity about a
master which even America had not destroyed. If we came in for supper
whilst the family was still at table he would have the children at once
take their plates to the wall, he would have Maria at once set the table
for us, though their own meal were never finished. And this was not
servility, it was the dignity of a religious conception. Paolo regarded
us as belonging to the Signoria, those who are elect, near to God. And
this was part of his religious service. His life was a ritual. It was
very beautiful, but it made me unhappy, the purity of his spirit was so
sacred and the actual facts seemed such a sacrilege to it. Maria was
nearer to the actual truth when she said that money was the only
distinction. But Paolo had hold of an eternal truth, where hers was
temporal.
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