In the third act, the song sung by the sleep-walker in her state of unconsciousness—"Ah non credea mirarti,"—was a great success. And most fascinatingly lovely the Diva looked in her white night-dress, with her wreath of rich auburn tresses hanging in luxuriant curls around her shoulders.
Shortly after this had been sung a liveried servant entered the Castelmare box, bearing a most superb bouquet of choice flowers, tied with a long streamer of broad rose-coloured ribbon, and deposited it on the front of the box.
And then came the joyful finale "Ah non giunge." And in that the Diva seemed to surpass herself. It was a passionate carol of love, and joy, and triumph in which she seemed to pour the whole force and energy of her soul into the words and sounds that told the truth, the entirety, the perfection of her love, and the overwhelming happiness the recognition of it by its object gave her.
For many minutes the vociferous applause continued. The stage was covered with flowers flung from all sides of the house. The Marchese Lamberto whispered a word or two to Ludovico; and then the latter, leaning far out of the box, presented the magnificent bouquet to Bianca, who was smiling and thanking the public for their plaudits by repeated curtsies, and who came for it to the side of the stage. She made a very low and graceful curtsey to Ludovico, as she took it from his hand; but her eyes thanked the Marchese Lamberto, who still remained close in his corner, for the gift.
The fact was that he was too much moved by violent and contending emotions to dare to trust himself to hand the flowers himself. He knew that he was shaking in every limb; and, therefore, had told his nephew to give the bouquet; which, indeed, it was quite a matter of course that a successful prima donna should receive from that box on such an occasion.
Again and again the curtain had to be raised after it had descended in obedience to the cries of the spectators, who were determined to make the Diva's triumph complete. Again and again she had to step back on the stage and make yet one more bow and smile—yet one more gracious smile.
During this delay the Marchese Lamberto slipped from his box and made his way behind the scenes. "Can you feel as Bianca what you can so divinely express as Amina?" he whispered in her ear as he gave her his arm to lead her to her carriage at the stage-door.
"Try me as Amina was tried; and reward me as Amina was rewarded, and then see," she replied in the same tone.
And so ended Bianca Lalli's Carnival engagement at Ravenna.
The next morning—the morning of the Monday after the gala performance at the theatre—the post brought to the Palazzo Castelmare a letter from Rome, before the Marchese had left his chamber. The servant took it to his master's room, found him still in bed, though awake, and left it on the table by his bedside.
The Marchese Lamberto was, and had been all his life, far too busy a man to be a late riser. Italians, indeed, who do nothing all day long, are often very early risers. Their, climate leads them to be so. They sleep during hours which are less available for being out of doors—for your Italian idler passes very little of his day in his own home—and they are up and out during the delicious hours of the early morning. But the Marchese Lamberto, whose days were filled with the multiplicity of occupations and affairs that have been described in a previous chapter, was wont, at all times of the year, to rise early.
On the present occasion, a sleepless night—and such nights, also, were a new phenomenon in the Marchese's life—might have been a reason for his being late. But he was not sleeping when his servant took the letter in to him. The frame of mind in which he returned from the theatre has been described. It lasted till he fell into a feverish sleep, soon after going to his bed.
The dreams that made such sleep anything but rest may be easily guessed. He was startled from them by the fancy that the kisses of Bianca burned his lips; that it was a scorching flame, that he was pressing in his arms, the contact of which turned all his blood to liquid fire.
He slept no more during the night. And the good that had seemed to him, as he sate in his box at the opera, more desirable than all the other goods the world could give, seemed good no longer; seemed, in the dark stillness of his night-thoughts, like a painted bait, with which the arch-tempter was luring him to his ruin and destruction.
Restlessly turning on his bed with a deep sigh, and pressing his hot hand to his yet hotter brow, he took the letter that had been brought him, and saw that it was from his Roman friend and correspondent, Monsignore Paterini:
"Illusmo Signor Marchese E Mio Buono E Colendmo Amico," the letter ran—"Seeing that the subject of my letter is matter adapted rather to Carnival than to Lenten tide, I hasten to write so that it may reach your lordship before the festive season is over. That your friends in Rome are never forgetful of one, who so eminently deserves all their best thoughts and good wishes, I trust I need not tell you. But in this our Rome, where so many interests are the unceasing care of so many powerful friends and backers, it needs such merit as that of your lordship to make the efforts of friends successful."
"Understand, then, that his Holiness has been kept constantly aware of all that Ravenna—the welfare of which ancient and noble city is especially dear to him—owes to your constant and intelligent efforts for the advancement of true civilization and improvement, as distinguished from all that innovators, uninfluenced by the spirit of religion, vainly, boast as such. Specially, our Holy Father has been pleased by the energy, tact, and truly well-directed zeal, with which you have succeeded in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the thorny and difficult business of the Spighi property, on which all the welfare of our well-beloved Sisters in Christ the Augustines of St. Barnaba so greatly depends. The lady superior of that well-deserving house is, as you are aware, the sister of his Eminence the Cardinal Lattoli; and so signal a service rendered in that direction is, as I need hardly tell your lordship, not likely to be forgotten."
"It is under these circumstances that I have the great satisfaction of having it in my power to inform your lordship, that it is the gracious purpose of our Holy Father to mark his approbation and satisfaction at the conduct of your illustrious lordship in this matter, in a manner that, while it manifests to the whole world the care of his Holiness for every portion of the dominions of the Holy Church, will, I doubt not, be highly gratifying to yourself at the present time, and will redound to the future glory and distinction of your noble family. It is, in a word, the intention of the Holy Father to confer on your lordship the Grand Cross of the Most Noble Order of the Santo Spirito. And it is further the benignant purpose and wish of his Holiness to present you with this most honourable mark of his approbation with his own sovereign hand."
"We may therefore hope—myself and your numerous other friends in this city—to see you here before long. Doubtless the tidings, which I have been anxious to be the first to give you, will be very shortly communicated to you in a more official manner. I fancy, indeed, that I shall not have been able to be much beforehand with the official announcement. Make your arrangements, then, I beseech you, to give us as long a visit as you can steal from the grave cares of watching over the interests of your beloved Ravenna. There are many here who are anxious to renew their acquaintance, and, if he will permit them to say so, their friendship with the Marchese di Castelmare. And, if I may venture to do so, my dear friend, I would, before closing my letter, whisper that, with due care and a little activity, the present favour of our Holy Father may be but the earnest of other things."
"The future, however, is in God's hands, and man is but as grass. Nevertheless, as far as it is permissible to judge of the human agencies by which the Heavenly Providence brings about its ends, I should say that your Legate, his Eminence the Cardinal Marliani, was, of all the present Fathers of the Church, one of the most deserving of our regards and respect. Should you have a fitting opportunity of allowing his Eminence to become aware how strongly such have always been my sentiments, and how unceasingly I endeavour to impress them on others, I should esteem it as a favour. It is well that merit even so exalted as his should know that it is appreciated."
"Omit not, my friend, to offer to the Marchese Ludovico, your nephew, the expression of my most distinguished regard and respect; and believe me, Illusmo Signor Marchese, of your Excellency the devoted friend and most obedient servant,"
"Giuseppe Paterini"
Before the Marchese had read the wordy epistle of his correspondent half through, he raised himself briskly to an upright sitting posture in his bed, his head was lifted with a proud movement from its drooping attitude, and an expression of gratified pride and pleasure came into his eyes. The much-coveted distinction which was now, he was told, to be his, had long been the object of his eager ambition. And the manner in which it was to be conferred on him—the attitude he should stand in with reference to his friend the Cardinal Legate—all contributed to make the occasion gratifying to him.
He rang his bell sharply for his servant, and said he would get up at once.
The valet said that there was a servant from the Legate's palace below, with a letter for the Marchese from the Cardinal—that, fearing his master was not well, and might be getting a little sleep, he, the valet, had been unwilling to bring the letter up; but that the man was waiting his Excellency's pleasure, as he had been ordered to ask for an answer.
Doubtless this was the official communication of which Paterini spoke, or the forerunner of it. The Marchese desired his man to bring him the Cardinal's letter directly.
Yes; the pleasant duty having fallen to the lot of the Cardinal of making a communication to the Marchese, which would doubtless be highly gratifying to him, his Eminence was anxious to seize the earliest opportunity of performing so agreeable a task; and would be happy to see the Marchese at one o'clock that day, if that hour suited his lordship's convenience.
"Delighted to have the honour of waiting on his Eminence at the hour named."
The Marchese put the two letters on his toilet-table, and proceeded to dress. They were large letters. That from Monsieur Paterini was written on a sheet of foolscap paper, and addressed in a large strong hand, with the word RAVENNA in letters half an inch high. That from the Cardinal was contained in a large square envelope, sealed with a huge seal bearing his Eminence's arms under a Cardinal's hat, with its long many-tailed tassels hanging down on either side.
What a triumph would be this journey to Rome. What a yet greater triumph the return from it. The Legate would certainly hold a special state reception to welcome him back, and give him an opportunity of showing the new order to all his fellow-citizens. What a proud hour it would be.
The Marchese was indulging in these thoughts; dressing himself the while, and looking every now and then at the two letters lying on his table, when a footman tapped at the door and handed to the valet, who was attending on his master, yet a third epistle. Unlike the Cardinal's servant, the man who had brought it had simply left it, and gone away without saying anything about an answer.
This third letter did not resemble its two predecessors—at least on the outside—at all. It was a very little letter; not a quarter of the size of either of the others; and the seal wherewith it was sealed was not a tenth of the size of that of his Eminence; also, instead of being white like the Cardinal's, or whity-yellow like the Prelate's, it was rose-coloured, and delicately perfumed. And the superscription, "All' Illmmo Sigr il Sigr Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare," was written in very daintily pretty and delicate small characters; as unmistakably feminine a letter as ever a gentleman received.
The Marchese's face changed visibly as the little missive was put into his hands. Yet he opened it eagerly, and opened his nostrils to the perfume, which exhaled from it, with a greedily sensuous seeming of pleasure.
This letter ran as follows:—"Dearest And Best,—If you were not indeed and indeed so to me, could I have ever suffered the vow that binds us mutually to each other to have been uttered?—Dearest and best, I write mainly, I think, for the mere pleasure of addressing you. For I am sure that it is not necessary to ask you to come to me. You can guess how eagerly I wish to speak to you; to hear from you that you have dismissed for ever those horrid thoughts that you vexed me with at the theatre last night. I longed so to have sung the words I had to utter for your ears—to your ears only: 'Amo il zeffiro, perche ad esso il tuo nome confido.' Ah, Lamberto, if you knew how true that is. It is often—how often—the singer's duty to utter on the stage the words of passion. But what a thing it is—a thing I never dreamed before—to feel them as I utter them. The opera did not go badly, did it? I think the success was a legitimate one. But what is any success or any applause now to me, save yours? I felt that I was singing to one only, as one only was in my heart and in my thoughts. Do not let many hours pass before you come to me, my love, my lord! For they go very slowly and heavily, these hours; and as I trace the movement of the tardy hour-hand on the clock, I grow sick with longing, and with hope deferred. Come to me, my dearest and my best. Your own,"
"Bianca"
"P. S.—I have mentioned our engagement to no soul save my father; of course you did not wish me to exclude him from our confidence. He is fully worthy of it."
The Marchese sunk down into the chair that stood before his toilet-table, with the little letter in his hand; and his hand shook, and his eyes were dizzy, and there was a buzzy ringing in his ears. And still the perfume from the pink paper rose to his nostrils, and seemed to his fancy as though it were a poison that he had neither the power nor the will to defend himself from.
He had put the little pink note down on the table where the two other letters were, and sat looking at the three. They were manifestly, fatally incompatible. Either the two big letters must be thrown to the winds—they and their contents for ever—together with all thought of honours, high social standing, and admiring respect of the world; or the little pink note must be crushed at once and for ever, and its writer—ah!—made to understand, to begin with, that the Marchese di Castelmare did not know his own mind; that his offer and his plighted word were not to be trusted.
The letters lying there on the table before him, as he sat gazing at them almost without the power of anything that merited to be called thought, represented themselves to his fancy as living agencies of contrasted qualities and powers. The two large missives from his ecclesiastical friends were creditable and useful steeds; harmless, wholesome in blood and nature, big and pacific, apt for service, and good for drawing him on to honour, success, and prosperity. The little pink note was a scorpion with a power a thousand-fold greater, for its size—a sharp, venomous, noxious power, stinging to the death, yet imparting with its sting a terrible, a fatal delight, an acrid fierce pleasure, which once tasted could not by any mortal strength of resolution be dashed away from the lips.
He took the sweet-scented little paper in his hand and read it through again. And his veins seemed to run with fire as he read. Then for the first time he saw the postscript. It had escaped his notice before. That old man had been informed that he had offered marriage to the girl he called his daughter and had been accepted.
It might not be so easy to crush the little pink scorpion note, and liberate himself from the writer of it. Proof? There might be no legal evidence to show that he had ever made such a promise. Yet, to have such an assertion made by Bianca and her father,—to have to deny the fact, knowing it to be true!—he, Lamberto di Castelmare! Great God! what was before him?
Then there was that woman, the servant, too. Might it not well be that she, too, knew the promise he had made; overheard him possibly; set to do so—likely enough! What was he to do?—what was he to do?
Something he must do quickly. The Cardinal Legate was expecting him at one o'clock, and—would it be best to drive Bianca from his mind till afterwards? Go to her he must in the course of the day!
Then, suddenly as a lightning-flash, he saw her before him as he had gazed on her at the theatre overnight in her white night-dress, uttering those words of passionate love—love which she told him was all addressed to him,—which she was pining to speak to him again.
That, then, it was in his power to have, and to have now,—now at once. "Ahi, ahi!" he gnashed, through his ground teeth, closing his eyes as the besieging vision postured itself in every seductive guise before the suggestions of his fancy. Ah, God! what were Cardinals, and Crosses, and place and station, or all the world beside, to one half-hour in those arms?
Come what come might, he would see her first before going to the Cardinal.
Snatching his hat, cane, and gloves, breakfastless as he was, he hurried out of the house half mad with the passion that was consuming him, yet with enough of the old thoughts about him to turn away, on quitting his own door, from the direction of the Porta Sisi, and to seek the goal of his thoughts by the most unfrequented route he could find.
Quinto Lalli and Bianca were sitting together in the parlour of their apartments in the Strada di Porta Sisi, that same Monday morning just after the little pink note had been despatched to the Marchese. Bianca was having her breakfast—a small quantity of black coffee in a drinking-glass, brought, together with a roll of dry bread, from the cafe. Old Lalli was not partaking of her repast, having previously enjoyed a similar meal, with the addition of a modicum of some horrible alcoholic mixture, called "rhume," poured into the coffee at the cafe in the next street.
"That will bring him fast enough," said the old man, alluding to the note which had been just despatched. "The game is quite in your own hands, as I told you from the beginning it would be. That postscript was a capital thought."
The postscript in question, which, it may be remembered, had not added to the pleasure the billet had given the Marchese, had been added at the suggestion of old Lalli himself.
"I would rather not have written it," replied Bianca, peevishly. "It looked too much like putting the screw on—I don't like it."
"Be reasonable, bambina mia, whatever you are. How, in the name of all the Saints, do you imagine that you are to become Marchesa di Castelmare without putting the screw on—and that pretty sharply too? The man is as thoroughly caught as ever man was caught by a woman; and I tell you, therefore, that the game is in your own hands. But you don't suppose that he is burningly eager to solicit the honour of your alliance, che diamine?"
"Don't, Quinto; don't go on in that way. I tell you I hate it all," returned Bianca.
"Cars mia, you are in an irrational humour this morning. Do you like the old game better? It don't pay, bambina mia, as you have found out; and, above all, it won't last. But I am sure you have reason to be satisfied with your success this season in any way. I never heard you sing better in my life than you did last night; and, to say the truth, these people seemed to appreciate it."
"I tell you, I hate it all—all—all!" said Bianca, as she swallowed the last drop of her coffee, and threw herself on the sofa in an attitude of languor and ennui.
"You are unreasonable, Bianca, you are not like yourself this morning; I don't know what is come to you. What in the world do you like, or what do you want?" said the old man, looking at her with a puzzled air.
"Did you see the Marchese Ludovico in a box on the right-hand side on the second tier with that Venetian girl, the artist?"
"The Marchese Ludovico was in the left-hand stage-box with his uncle."
"Of course he was; but I mean between the acts. I saw him from the wing by the side of that girl with her face the colour of mahogany, and her half-alive look. I hate the look of her, and I know she hates me!"
Old Quinto looked at his pupil curiously for a minute before he replied to her.
"What do you mean, Bianca mia?" he said, at last; "and what, in the name of all the Saints, is the Venetian girl to you, or you to her? Did you ever speak to her? Why should she hate you?"
"I tell you, she does. We women can always see those things without needing to be told them; and she knows, you may be very sure, that I hate her."
"But why? What is she to you?" reiterated the old man.
"You asked me, just now, what I wanted. I want, if you must know, what I can never have—what the Venetian girl last night was getting."
"And what was she getting? I don't understand you, upon my soul!" said Quinto, staring at her, and utterly puzzled.
"What was she getting? Love!—that was what she was getting! Ludovico loves her," said Bianca, raising herself on her elbow, and speaking with fierce bitterness.
"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" whistled Quinto, between his pursed-up lips. "But I thought, bambina mia, that you were going to love the Marchese Lamberto, and be a good wife to him, and all the rest of it, according to the rules and practices of the best-regulated domestic family circles; and I—I was so rejoiced to hear it," said the old reprobate, casting up his eyes and hands.
"Don't, Quinto; don't talk in that manner, or you'll drive me beyond myself. I can't bear it."
"But did you not say that you loved the Marchese Lamberto?" persisted Quinto, dropping his mocking tone, however.
"I said that I liked him better than any of the men I have known; that I admired him as a fine and noble gentleman; that I would be a good and true wife to him,—and should love him," she added, with a burst of bitterness, "better than he ever will, or can, love me."
"Well, come now, bambina mia. If you think that the Marchese is not enough in love with you, you must have a strong appetite, indeed, and be very hard to content. Why, if there ever was a man thoroughly caught, fascinated—"
"Bah! Love! Ludovico loves the Venetian," said Bianca, with an expressive emphasis on the verb.
"Ludovico, again! I protest I don't understand you, Bianca. But there, when a man has come to my age he don't expect ever to understand a woman. You did not want Ludovico, as you call him, to love you, did you?"
"No: but—"
And Bianca stopped short, and seemed to fall into a sort of reverie.
"But what? If you mean that you wanted to have the uncle for a husband, and the nephew for a lover, that is intelligible enough. The game would have been a dangerous one. But there is no reason why you should not say it plainly between friends."
"I tell you, Quinto, I won't hear you speak to me in that tone," said Bianca, turning on him fiercely, and with flashing eyes. "Did I ever do anything to attract him?" she added,—"did I try to make him love me? Do you think that the Venetian would have stood in the way if I had chosen to do so? I never did! I meant, if the Marchese would make me his wife, to be true and loyal to him; though he himself seems to think it impossible that I should be so. You know that I have never attempted to attract Ludovico in any way."
"Very well then; let his Venetian have him in peace," said Quinto, shrugging his shoulders.
"Why, then, does that girl hate me as she does? What harm have I ever done her?" returned Bianca.
"Why should you think she does hate you?" expostulated Quinto.
"I have told you that I saw it. I saw it in her eyes when Ludovico was handing me the bouquet;—which he only did because his uncle told him to do it. She would have blasted me to death with her look at that moment if she could have done it;—I have a good mind—a very good mind—"
"Be guided by me this once for the last time, as you have so often been before; bambina mia," said Quinto, who thought that he now understood the real state of the case; "make sure of your own game first. Make all safe with the Marchese Lamberto. When you are the Marchesa di Castelmare it will be time to take any revenge on the Venetian you please."
"Ah—h—h—h!" sighed Bianca, shaking her head with an expression of disgust; "you understand nothing about it, Quinto; you can't—of course you can't. Gia," she continued, after a pause of thought; "yes, I could take from her, poor fool, what she has; but could I, Bianca Lalli, take it and keep it for myself? Ah me, it is weary work! You might as well go and flaner, Quinto; for I must dress ready for the Marchese, in case he comes this morning."
"He'll come sure enough," said Quinto; as he prepared to leave the room.
"It's quite time, then, that I made myself ready to receive him," returned Bianca, getting up from the sofa.
"Amo il zeffiro, perche a lui suo nome confido," she sang, as she turned listlessly to go to her chamber; and despite what she had said—and said with perfect sincerity to her adopted father—it may be feared that the suo did not refer in the singer's mind to the Marchese Lamberto.
Quinto Lalli was in the act of shutting the sitting-room door behind him, when the outer door of the apartment opened and Ludovico appeared in the doorway. He was the very last man whom Quinto, with the ideas in his head which the above conversation with Bianca had put into it, would have wished to see there. And perhaps there was something in his manner of meeting the visitor that enabled the Marchesino to perceive that he was not just then welcome.
"A thousand pardons," he said, in an easy, careless manner, "for coming at so indiscreetly early an hour; but I could not refrain from just saying one word to the Signorina Bianca on her last night's triumph, and I shall have no opportunity of seeing her later in the day."
"Bianca," called out Quinto, re-opening the door he was closing, and putting his head back into the room, "here's the Marchese Ludovico wishes to speak to you." If the old man had not been a little bit out of humour with his adopted daughter he would probably have found some excuse for getting rid of the inopportune visitor.
"Pray let the Signor Marchese come in," returned Bianca, turning back from the door of her bed-room, rather to the surprise of Signor Quinto;—and Ludovico passed on into the sitting-room as the old man went out and shut the outer door behind him.
Bianca, as she had said, had been about to dress to receive the Marchese Lamberto; and Ludovico thus caught her (really surprised this time) in her morning toilette. But there was nothing in her dress to prevent her from being with propriety presentable, or, indeed, to prevent her from looking very charming in her dishabille. Nevertheless, she did not intend, as we have seen, to present herself without further adornment to the Marchese Lamberto; and it was not without a certain feeling of bitterness at her heart that she said to herself, "What does it signify?" as she cast a glance at her looking-glass before stepping back into the sitting-room to receive her visitor.
"Really, Signora, I don't know how to apologize sufficiently for thus breaking in upon you," said Ludovico, coming forward to meet her; "but I could not refrain from calling to say one word of congratulation. Can you forgive me?"
"I hardly know whether I can," said Bianca, half pouting and half laughing, and looking wholly beautiful; "to be seen when they are not fit to be seen is an offence which we others, women, find it difficult to forgive, you know."
"But that is an offence which, in the nature of things, cannot be committed against the Signora Bianca Lalli," retorted Ludovico, with a low bow, half earnest and half in fun, and a look of admiration that was entirely sincere. "But the fact is," he continued, "that I really was impatient to be the first to make you my compliments on last night's immense success. To tell you that I never heard a part sung as you sang that of Amina last night would, perhaps, appear to you to be saying little. But I do assure you the whole city is saying that there never was anything like it. It was superb! Perfect! Perhaps the praise of all Ravenna is not worth very much to one who has had that of all Italy. But, at all events, my uncle is a competent judge—and he is not an easy one. And I do assure you he was moved as I never saw him moved by music before."
"He is very good—too kind to me. He was good enough to see me to my carriage at the theatre last night; and he said some word that makes me think he purposes doing me the honour of coming here to give me the advantage of his criticism on last night's performance," said Bianca, who was anxious to let her visitor understand the desirability of avoiding being caught there by his uncle.
"Yes, I am sure he would not fail to bring his tribute of admiration this morning," returned Ludovico, carelessly; "but he will not be here yet awhile. He is an early man in general, lo zio; but he has not been well latterly. You must have seen yourself, Signorina, how changed he is since you have known him. I really begin to be uneasy about him. You must surely have observed how ill he is looking."
"I am so grieved to hear you say so. Of course any change must be far more evident to those who have known him all his life. But I should have said that I had rarely or never seen so remarkably young-looking a man for his years. The Marchese happened to tell me once that he is fifty or not far from it. It seemed to me impossible to believe it," said Bianca, who understood perfectly well how and why it came to pass that the Marchese should latterly be a changed man.
"Three months ago he might have well passed for five-and-thirty; but, per Bacco, he looks his years now every day of them—and more, too, il povero zio."
"Nay, Signor Ludovico, I think your regard for your uncle makes you think him worse than he is. I thought he was looking very well at the theatre last night," replied Bianca, knowing nothing more to the purpose to say.
"At the theatre. Ah! perhaps. He was pleased and excited. I did not specially remark him last night. But, the truth is, I am not easy about him."
"I feel very much persuaded, Signor Ludovico, that you are alarming yourself unnecessarily. Your fears are excited by your affection for your uncle. I doubt whether many nephews in your position, Signor Marchese, would feel as much anxiety about the health of an uncle whose heirs they were; not that I mean, of course, Signor, to insinuate that you are dependent on your uncle," added Bianca, who felt considerable curiosity to know how matters stood in the Castelmare family in this respect.
"Faith, though, I am dependent on him," returned Ludovico, with the most careless frankness. "I have not a bajocco in the world but what comes to me from him. But lo zio is more generous than uncles often are to their nephews who are to be their heirs. And I am in no hurry to succeed to him, I assure you."
"I am sure that would not be in your nature in any case, Signor Ludovico," returned Bianca; "but there is some excuse for those being in a hurry whose future depends on the caprice of old people," she added, fishing for further information.
"But my future does depend upon his caprice—in one way, at all events. Suppose my uncle should take it into his head to marry, and have a family. There is nothing to prevent him. Many an older man than he by a great deal has done so. And if that were to happen, there is not a beggar in all Ravenna who is a poorer man than I should be. Only that lo zio is about the most unlikely man to marry in all Italy, it is a thing that might happen any day."
"Why should the Signor Marchese be so unlikely to marry? One would say, to look at him, that it was not such an unlikely thing. Suppose some designing woman were to make the attempt?"
"There does not exist the woman who could have the faintest shadow of success in such an enterprise, Signora. If you could tell how often the thing has been tried! He is seasoned, lo zio is. Besides, he never was a man given much to falling in love at any time of his life. I don't think he is much an admirer of the sex, to tell you the truth. No; there is no fear of that."
There was a silence of some minutes, and Bianca seemed to have fallen into a reverie; till, suddenly, raising her eyes, which had fallen beneath their lashes, while she had been busy with her thoughts, she said, looking up archly into Ludovico's face:
"Your attention, at all events, was not so fully occupied by the performance last night, Signor, but that you had plenty of thoughts and eyes at command for other matters."
"What do you mean, Signora? I am sure I was not only an attentive but a delighted listener," said he, while the tell-tale blood flushed his cheeks.
"Ah! I saw which way your glances and thoughts were wandering. We artists see more things in the salle than you of the world before the foot-lights think for. A very pretty little brunette, in No. 10 on the upper tier, was quite equally aware of the direction of the Marchese Ludovico's thoughts and looks."
"You might have seen not only my thoughts but me myself in the same box, Signora, if you could have continued your observations after the curtain was down. The lady you saw there is one for whom I have the highest possible regard," said Ludovico, with a very slight shade of hauteur quite foreign to his usual manner, in his tone.
It was very slightly marked, but not so slightly as to escape the notice of Bianca, who perfectly well understood it and the meaning of it.
"I dare say she well deserves it; she looks as if she did," said the Diva, with a pensive air, and a dash of melancholy in her voice. "I have often wondered," she continued, after a moment's pause, "whether you others, grand signori, ever ask yourselves, when you bestow such regards as you speak of on a poor artist—I know who she is, merely an artist like myself—what the result to the woman so loved is likely to be?"
"Signora!" cried Ludovico, provoked, exactly as Bianca had intended he should be, into saying what he would not otherwise have allowed to escape him, "permit me to assure you that, however pertinent such speculations may be in other cases, which have doubtless fallen under your observation, they are altogether the reverse of pertinent in the present instance. The lady in question is, as you say, a poor artist; not, perhaps, as you were also kind enough to say, one quite of the same kind as yourself, neither so successful nor so celebrated"—he hastened to add as he saw a sudden paleness come over the face of the singer, and an expression sudden and rapidly repressed and effaced, of such a concentration of wrath and hatred in her eyes, that momentary as it was, pulled him up short with something very much akin to a feeling resembling fear—"an artist neither so successful nor so celebrated as the Signora Lalli, but, nevertheless, a lady whom it is the dearest wish of my heart to call my wife."
"She is indeed, then, a most fortunate and happy woman," said Bianca, who had perfectly recovered herself, with grave gentleness; "and I am sure that neither I nor any sister artist have any right to envy her her happiness. Would it seem presumption in a poor comedian to express her earnest wish that you, too, Signor Ludovico, may find your happiness in such a marriage?"
"Nay, don't speak in that tone!" said Ludovico, putting out his hand and taking hers, which she readily gave him. "I accept your good wishes, Signora, most thankfully. I do hope and think that I—that we shall find happiness in our mutual choice. But, pray observe, Signora, that our talk has led me into confiding a secret to you, that I have, as yet, told to no living soul, and that it is important to me it should be kept secret yet awhile longer. I know I may trust you; may I not?"
"Depend on it, Signor Marchese, your secret shall be quite safe with me. But are you sure it is a secret? And then, do you know," continued the Diva, resuming her air of pensive thought, "when I hear a man in your position speaking with such noble truthfulness, the converse of the thought that I angered you—very innocently, believe me—by expressing just now, comes into my head. And I ask myself, if women in such a position as the lady we speak of, are apt to take themselves to task with sufficient strictness, as to what they are giving in return for all that is offered to them."
"I don't quite understand your meaning, Signora," said Ludovico, who really did not perceive the drift of his companion's words.
"I mean that a woman, so circumstanced, ought to be very sure that she is giving her heart to the man who asks for it, and not to his position, not to the advantages, to the wealth he offers her. She ought to feel certain that, if all this—the advantages—the wealth were to vanish and fly away, her love would remain the same. Suppose now—it is out of the question, you tell me, but the case may be imagined all the same—suppose your uncle, the Marchese, were to marry, would the Venetian lady's love suffer no tittle of falling off?"
The red blood rushed to Ludovico's cheeks and brow, and then came an angry gleam into his eyes. It was not that he resented the liberty which his companion took in thus speaking to him. It was not, either, that he felt indignant at the doubt cast, even hypothetically, on the purity of his Paolina's love. It was rather the unreasoning animal anger against the person who had given him pain. It was a stab to his heart, this germ of a doubt thus placed there for the first time. He was conscious of the pang, and resented it. In the next minute the hot flush passed from his face, and he became very pale.
Bianca saw, and understood it all, as perfectly as if she could have seen into his heart and brain.
"The doubt, you put before me, is so horrible an one that I could almost wish it might be put to the test you speak of. But I have no such doubt. However much your questioning may be justified by other examples, it is not justified in the case of Paolina. I know her; I know her heart, and the perfect truthfulness that wells up from the depths of her honest eyes."
No amount of ready histrionism was sufficient to prevent a very meaning, though momentary, sneer from passing over the beautiful face of the singer as Ludovico spoke thus. But he was too much excited by his own thoughts and words to perceive it.
"I trust that you may be right, Signor Marchese. I have no doubt that you are right. Believe me that I have ventured to speak as I have spoken, solely from interest in the welfare of one who has been so uniformly good and kind to me as you have. Will you believe me, Signor Ludovico, that I would do a good deal and bear a good deal to be able to conduce to your happiness in any way?"
She put out her hand to him, as she spoke the last words, with her eyes dropped to the ground, and with a feeling of genuine shyness, that was quite surprising and puzzling to herself.
"Dear Signora, I will and do believe it with all my heart; and, in truth, I am deeply grateful to you for your good will," said Ludovico, really touched by the evident and genuine sincerity of her words.
"And now, I must ask you to leave me. I must dress myself and lose no time about it. The Marchese will be here in a minute or two. And I could not, you know, venture to receive him in the unceremonious manner which you have been good enough to excuse."
She gave him a little sidelong look with half a laugh in her eyes, as she said the latter words; and Ludovico, putting the tips of her fingers to his lips before relinquishing her hand, bowed, and left her without saying anything further.
Ludovico had run up in a hurry to Bianca's lodging, as has been seen, merely because it happened to be in his way, and because he had been desirous, as he told her, of paying her his compliments on the success of the preceding evening. He was hastening to pay another visit, in which his heart was far more interested, and had not intended to remain with La Lalli above five minutes. The conversation between them had extended to a greater length; and the Marchesino, eager as he was to get to the dear little room in the Via di Sta. Eufemia, would have made it still longer, had not the Diva dismissed him.
The talk between them had become far more interesting than any which he had thought likely to pass between him and the famous singer. This horrible doubt—no, not a doubt—he had not, would not, could not doubt; but this germ of a doubt deposited in his mind by the words she had spoken? Could she have had any second motive for speaking as she had done? Surely not; surely all her manner and her words showed sufficiently clearly that she was actuated by kindly feelings towards him and by no unkindly feeling towards Paolina. Yet unquestionably Paolina's instinctive prejudice against her would not have been diminished by a knowledge of what the Diva had said. Ludovico thought of the bitter and burning indignation with which his darling would have heard the expression of the possibility of a doubt of the uncalculating purity and earnestness of her love.
Nevertheless he felt that he should have liked to talk further with Bianca on the subject; of course only to convince her of the absolute injustice of her suspicions. Still she was a woman, a fellow artist; placed in some respects in the same position in relation to the world to which he belonged, as his Paolina—in some respects similar; but oh, thank God, how different! Yet women understood each other in a way a man could never hope to understand them. What immediately struck Bianca, struck her naturally and instinctively in this matter of a marriage between him and the Venetian artist, was the idea that Paolina, almost as a matter of course, was at least biassed in her acceptance of his love by a consideration of the material advantages she would gain by it. It was the natural thing then, the thing a priori to be expected, that a girl in Paolina's position should be so influenced. Ludovico would fain have questioned and cross-questioned La Bianca, his experienced monitress, a little more on this point.
Yes, to be expected a priori. But when one knew Paolina; when one knew her as he knew her, was it not impossible? Could it be that Paolina, being such as he knew her in his inmost heart to be, should even adulterate her love with interested calculations? He knew it was not so; and yet—and yet other men had been as certain as he, and had been deceived. In short the germ of doubt had been planted in his mind. And Bianca well knew what she had been about when she planted it there.
Why had she done so? She spoke with perfect sincerity when she had told him that she would do much and suffer much for his happiness. And yet she had knowingly placed this thorn in his heart. Why could she not let him, as Quinto Lalli had expressed it, have his Venetian in peace? She spoke truly, moreover, when she said that, married to the Marchese Lamberto, she fully purposed to make him a good and true wife; truly, when she declared to old Lalli, and also to her own heart, that she really did like and admire him much. And yet there was something in the sight of the love of Ludovico and Paolina that was bitter, odious, intolerable to her.
Ludovico hastened to the house in the Via di Santa Eufemia on quitting that in the Via di Porta Sisi, not unhappy, not even uneasy; with no recognized doubt, but with a germ of doubt in his mind.
Signora Orsola had gone out per fare le spese, to make the marketings for the day; and he found Paolina alone. Such a tete-a-tete would have been altogether contrary to all rules in the more strictly regulated circles of Italian society. And it would have been all the more, and by no means the less contrary to rule in consequence of the position in which Ludovico and Paolina stood towards each other. But the world to which Paolina belonged lives under a different code in these matters. And ever since the day in which the memorable conversation between her and her lover, which has been recorded in a former chapter, had taken place, Paolina had never felt the smallest embarrassment or even shyness in her intercourse with him. And she received him now with openly expressed rejoicing, that the chance of Orsola's absence gave them the opportunity of being for a little while alone together.
"I called at this early hour, tesoro mio," said Ludovico, "mainly to tell you that I have made all the necessary arrangements at St. Apollinare in Classe, and you can begin your work there as soon as you like. What a dreary place it is. To think of my little Paolina working, working away all by herself in that dismal old barn of a church out there amid the swamps!"
"Oh, I shan't be a bit afraid. I am so accustomed to work all by myself."
"No, there is nothing to be afraid of! Do you think I should let you go there alone, if there were? You will find the scaffolding all ready for you."
"Thanks, dearest, I am so much obliged to you; I should never have been able to get my task done without your help. Ah, how strange things are! To think, that that Englishman, in sending me here, should have been—"
"Should have been sending me my destined wife. Who ever in the world did me so great a service as this Signor Vilobe, who never had a thought of me in his mind."
"And if I had chanced not to be in the gallery at the Belle Arti that day," rejoined Paolina, with a shudder at the thought of what the consequences of such an absence would have been.
"You will have the great church entirely to yourself, anima mia," said Ludovico; "there is not a soul near the place, save the old monk, who keeps the keys, and a lay-brother, who was ill, the poor old frate said, when I was there. It is a dreary place, my Paolina, and I am afraid you will find your task a weary one. I fear it will be cold too."
"Oh, I don't mind that much! What is more important, is to get the job done before the hot weather comes on. They say it is so unhealthy out there, when the heat comes. What is the old frate like?"
"He is a very old, old man, and he looks as if fever and ague every summer and autumn had pretty nearly made an end of him. He seemed quite inclined to be civil and obliging. If he were not, you could knock him down with a tap of your maulstick, I should think, though it be wielded by such a tiny, dainty little bit of a hand," said Ludovico, lifting it to his lips between both his as he spoke. "And now tell me," he continued; "what did you think of the third act last night? Did she not sing that finale superbly?"
"Superbly,—certainly the finest singing I heard. But—"
"What is the 'but,' anima mia? I confess I thought it perfect."
"So I suppose it was. But I think that perhaps I should have had more pleasure in hearing a less magnificent singer, who was more simpatica to me. I can't help it, but I do not like her; and I am sure I can't tell why. I have no reason; but do you know, Ludovico mio, there was one moment when, strange as it may seem, our eyes met—hers and mine—in the theatre last night. It was just as she turned away from your box, when you had put the bouquet into her hand. She looked up, and our eyes met; and I can't tell you the strange feeling and impression that her look made upon me. And I am quite sure that, for some unaccountable reason or other, she does not like me. She looked at me—it was only half a moment with a sort of mocking triumph and hatred in her eyes, that quite made me shudder and turn cold.
"If it were not so entirely impossible, I should think you were jealous, my little Paolina. If I were to—what shall we say?—if I were to set out on a journey with la Diva, tete-a-tete, to travel from here to Rome, should you be jealous?"
"With La Bianca?"
"Yes! with La Bianca."
"I don't know. I don't think that I should in earnest. I know in my inmost heart, my own love, that you love me truly and entirely; I feel it, I am sure of it. But all the same, I should rather that you did not travel from here to Rome alone with La Lalli."
"That means that, to a certain degree, you are jealous, little one. Do you think I should be uneasy if you were called on to travel under the escort, for example, of our friend the Conte Leandro?"
"The Conte Leandro!" cried Paolina, laughing, "I am sure you ought to be uneasy at the bare thought of such a thing, for you know how terrible it would be to me. But is it quite the same thing, amico mio? La Lalli is indisputably a very beautiful woman; and the Conte Leandro is—the Conte Leandro. But it is not that she is beautiful. I don't know what it is. There is something about her—ecco, I should not the least mind now your travelling to the world's end, or being occupied in any other way, with the Contessa Violante."
"She is not a beautiful woman, certainly."
"She is, at all events, fifty times more pleasing-looking, as well as more attractive in every way, than the Conte Leandro. But that is not what makes the difference. I take it, the difference is, that one feels that the Contessa Violante is good, and that nobody would get anything but good from her. I have got quite to love her myself."
"And yet you see, Paolina mia, somehow or other it came to pass that I could not love her, when I was bid to do so; and, in the place of doing that, I went and loved somebody else instead. How is that to be accounted for, eh?"
"I am sure that is more than I can guess, Ludovico."
"One thing is clear—and a very good thing it is—that Violante has no more desire to marry me than I have to marry her. As soon as ever Carnival is over, my own darling, I mean to speak definitively to my uncle, and tell him, in the first place, that he must give up all notion of a marriage between Violante and me."
"As soon as Carnival is over. Why, that will be the day after to-morrow,"—said Paolina, flushing all over.
"Exactly so; the day after to-morrow. But I mean only to tell him, in the first instance, that I cannot make the marriage he would have me. Then, when that is settled—and some little time allowed for him to get over his mortification, il povero zio—will come the announcement of the marriage I can make. I have quite fixed with myself to do it the day after to-morrow. But—I don't know what to make of my uncle. He is not in the least like himself. I am afraid he must be ill. I fully expected that I should have to fight all through Carnival against constant exhortations to pay my court to the Contessa. But he has never spoken to me a word on the subject."
"Perhaps he has discovered that the lady likes the proposal no better than you do," suggested Paolina, with a wise look of child-like gravity up at her lover's face.
"No; it's not that. He never dreams of her having any will in the matter apart from that of her family. I can't make him out. There's something wrong with him. He looks a dozen years older than he did; and his habits are changed too."
"Do you think—that is—it has just come into my head—do you remember, Ludovico, what I said to you last night at the theatre about the way La Lalli sung her love verses at him?"
"La Lalli again. Why, she has fascinated you at all events. You can think of nothing else. La Lalli and lo zio. Dio mio! If you only knew him. All the prime donne in Europe might sing at him, or make eyes at him, or make love to him, in any manner they liked from morning till night without making any more impression on him than a hundred years, more or less, on the tomb of the Emperor Theodoric out there. No, anima mia, that's not it. No, il povero zio, I am more inclined to think that he is breaking up. It does happen, sometimes, that your men, who have never known a day's illness in their lives, break down all of a sudden in that way. Everybody in the city has been saying that he is changed and ill. But I must be off, my darling. I only came to tell you that all was in readiness for you at St. Apollinare. At least that was my excuse for coming. But now I must go and see about all sorts of things for the reception to-night. We shall have all the world at the Palazzo to-night. And lo zio asked me to see to everything. Addio, Paolina mia. You know where my heart will be all the time. Addio, anima mia."
After Ludovico had passed into the sitting-room in the Via di Porta Sisi to pay his visit to Bianca, Quinto Lalli prepared to leave the house in accordance with her suggestion that he should dispose of himself out-of-doors for the present. But before going he called Gigia the maid, and said, as he stood with the door in his hand:
"Gigia, cara mia, the Marchese Lamberto is coming here presently; just make use of your sharp ears to hear what passes between him and Bianca; and take heed to it, you understand, so as to be able to give an account of it afterwards if it should be needed. You need not say anything about it to la bambina till afterwards; I have no secrets from her, you know, and, as soon as the Marchese is gone, you may tell her that you have heard everything, and that I directed you to do so; but better to say nothing about it beforehand. Inteso?"
"Si, si, Signor Quinto! Lasci fare a me!"
And, with that, the careful old man went out for his walk, and it was not half-an-hour after Ludovico left the house before the Marchese made his appearance.
Bianca, now having completed her toilette, started from her sofa, and went forward to meet him with both hands extended, and with one of her sunniest smiles.
"This is kind of you, Signor Marchese. I hoped, ah! how I hoped, that you would come. If you had not, I don't know what would have become of me. My heart was already sinking with the dreadful fear that my little note might have displeased you. But, thank God, you are here: and that is enough."
"Of course, Bianca, I came when you begged me to do so," said the Marchese, looking at her with a sort of sad wistfulness, and retaining both her hands in his. He advanced his face to kiss her, and she stooped her head so as to permit him to press his lips to her forehead.
"Was it of course, amore mio?" she said, with a gushing look of exquisite happiness, and a little movement towards clasping his hand, which still held hers, to her heart. "Was it of course that you should come to your own, own Bianca when she begged it? But you are looking fagged, harassed, troubled, mio bene: have you had anything to vex you? Henceforward, you know, all that is trouble to you is trouble to me. I shall insist on sharing your sorrows as well as your joys, Lamberto. What is it that has annoyed you, amore mio?"
"I have much on my mind—necessarily, Bianca mia; many things that are not pleasant to think of. Can you not guess as much?"
"I have had but one thought, amico mio, since I heard from your lips the dear words that told me that henceforward we should be but one; that our lives, our hopes, our fears, would be the same; that, in the sight of God and man, you would be my husband, and I your wife. Since then, I have had but one thought, and it is one which would avail to gild all others, let them be what they might, with its brightness. Is the same thought as sweet a source of happiness to you, my promised husband?"
"That's clear enough, I hope," thought Gigia, outside the door, to herself. "Che! If nothing had been said the other day, that would be enough; and I think Quinto might trust nostra bambina to manage her own affairs. She knows what she is about, the dear child: not but that it is a good plan to be able to remind a gentleman in case he should forget. Gentlemen will forget such things sometimes."
"You cannot doubt my love," said the Marchese, in reply to her appeal.
Those five words may possibly, in the course of the world's history, have occurred before in the same combination. But the phrase served the occasion as well as if it had been entirely new and original.
"Indeed, I do not, Lamberto; nor will you again, I trust, ever doubt mine as you seemed to do last night. Ah, Lamberto! you do not know how bitterly I wept over the remembrance of those cruel words when I had parted from you. You will never, never say such again. Tell me you never will."
"Doubts and fears, my Bianca, are the inevitable companions of such a love as mine," said the Marchese, with a somewhat sickly smile; "but the few words you said last night sufficed to dissipate them, as I assured you."
"But there is still something troubling your mind, Lamberto. See, I already take the wifely privilege you have given me to wish to share all that annoys you. What is it? Come and sit by me here on the sofa, and tell me all about it."
And then the Marchese sat himself in the seat of danger that had been proposed to him, and, in a certain degree, explained to Bianca the difficulties attending a marriage with her. He tried hard to recommend to her favourable consideration the plan of a secret marriage—of a marriage to be kept secret, at all events, for awhile for the present; but such an arrangement, as may easily be understood, did not, in Bianca's view, meet the requirements of the case. That was not what she wanted. It may also be easily understood that the Marchese, occupying the position which the enemy had assigned to him, carried on the contest at an overpowering disadvantage, and was finally routed, utterly conquered, and yielded at discretion.
On her side the advantages of the situation were made the most of with the most consummate generalship. The limit between that which was permitted to him, and that which was denied to him, was drawn with a firmness and judgment admirably conducive to the attainment of the end in view. He was permitted to encircle the slender, yielding waist with one arm as he sat by her side on the sofa, and to retain possession of her hand with the other; but any advanced movement from this base of operations was firmly and unhesitatingly repressed. At one moment, when the attacking party seemed to be on the point of pressing his advances with more vigour than before, it chanced that the Diva coughed; and it so happened that, in the next instant, Gigia entered the room, bringing wood for the fire in her arms—a diversion which, of course, involved the execution of a hurried movement of retreat on the part of the enemy.
The whole of Bianca's tactics, indeed, were admirable. And the result was, as usual, victory. Once again, as long as he was in her presence and by her side, the unfortunate Marchese felt that the spell was irresistible—absolutely irresistible by any force of volition that he was able to oppose to it. Once again it seemed to him that the only thing in the world that it was utterly impossible to him to relinquish was the possession of Bianca. The hot fit of his fever was on him in all its intensity; and there was nothing that he could do, or suffer, or undergo that he would not rather do, or suffer, or undergo than admit the thought of giving her up. It really seemed as if there were some physical emanation from her person—some magnetic stream—some distillation from the nervous system of one organization mysteriously potent over the nervous system of another, which mounted to his brain, mastered the sources of his volition, and drew him helpless after her, as helplessly as the magnetized patient obeys the will of his magnetizer.
Suddenly both of them heard one o'clock strike from the neighbouring church. To the Marchese it was a knell which, with horrid warning-note, dragged him forcibly back from his Circean dalliance to the thoughts, the things, and the people whose incompatibility with the possibility of such dalliance was driving him mad. It was the hour at which he had promised to wait upon the Cardinal. It was absolutely necessary that he should go at once; and he tore himself away from that fatal sofa-seat with a wrench, and a reflection on the purpose of his visit to the Legate, which seemed to him really to threaten to disturb his reason.
Slinkingly he stole from the house in the Strada di Porta Sisi, and hurried to the Cardinal's palace. His mind seemed to reel, and a cold sweat broke out all over him as he rang the bell at the top of the great stone stair of the Legate's dwelling.
This business that he was now here for—those high honours which were about to be lavished upon him—would they not all make his position so much the worse? The higher he stood, would not his fall be the more terrible? What would be said or thought of him? At Rome, immediately after the high distinction shown him, what would they not say? Here, in Ravenna, how should he look his fellow-citizens in the face? Impossible, impossible. Could he venture even to accept the high distinction offered to him? Would there not be something dishonourable—a sort of treachery in suffering this mark of the Holy Father's special favour to be bestowed upon him, while he was meditating to do that which, if his intention were known, would make it quite impossible that any such honour should be conferred on him?
And how fair was life before him, as it would be if only this fatal woman had never crossed his path? And was it not even yet in his own power to make it equally fair again? Was it not sufficient for him to will that it should be so?
What if he never saw Bianca again? What could avail any nonsense she or her pretended father might talk of him? If they were to declare on the house-tops that he had promised marriage to La Lalli, what human being in all the city would believe them? The very notion that such a thing could be possible would be treated as the impudent invention of people who clearly had not the smallest knowledge of the man they were attempting to practise on. No, he had but to will it to be free. If only he could will it.
And with these thoughts passing through his mind he entered the receiving-room of the Legate.
It was impossible to be received more cordially than he was by that high dignitary. His Eminence felt sure that his old acquaintance and highly-valued good friend the Marchese was aware how great his (the Cardinal's) pleasure had been in discharging the duty that had devolved upon him. The letter he had that morning received from the Cardinal Secretary was a most flattering one. Perhaps he (the Cardinal) might take some credit to himself for having performed a friend's part, as was natural, in keeping them at Rome well acquainted with the singular merits of the Marchese. He would, indeed, have been neglecting his duty if he had done otherwise.
Then, after alluding lightly and gracefully to the special interest he could not but feel, in his private capacity, in any honour which tended yet more highly to distinguish a family with which he trusted his own might at no distant day be allied, he told the Marchese that it was probable that nothing would be done in the matter till after Easter.
It was the gracious wish of the Holy Father to enhance the honour bestowed by conferring it with his own apostolic hand; and, doubtless, as soon as Lent should be over, it would be intimated to the Marchese that the Holy Father was desirous of seeing him at Rome. When he came back thence his fellow-citizens would, in all probability, wish to mark, by some little festivity or otherwise, with which he, on the part of the government, should have great pleasure in associating himself, their sense of the honour done to their city in the person of its most distinguished citizen.
The Marchese, while the Cardinal Legate was making all these gracious communications, strove to look as "like the time" and the occasion as he could. At first it was very difficult to him to do so at all satisfactorily. The influence of that other interview, from which he had so recently come, was too strong upon him. All the images and ideas called up by the Cardinal's words were too violently at variance, and too incompatible with those other desires and thoughts to affect him otherwise than as raising additional obstacles and piling up more and more difficulties in the path before him. But, as the interview with the courteous and dignified churchman proceeded,—as the genius loci of the Cardinal's library began to exert its influence—as all the hopes and ambitions and prospects which were opened before his eyes, falling into their natural and proper connection of continuity with all his former life, so linked the present moment with that past life as to make all that had filled the last few weeks seem like a fevered dream,—gradually the Marchese entered more and more into the spirit of the Cardinal's conversation. Gradually all that he had hitherto lived for came to seem to him again to be all that was worth living for. Old habitual thoughts and ideas, the growth and outcome of a whole life, once again asserted their wonted supremacy; and the Marchese Lamberto marvelled that it should be possible for that to happen to him which had happened to him.
Ah! if only weak men were as prone to run away from temptation as they are to run away from the difficulties that are created by yielding to it. But they are ever as brave to run the risks of confronting the tempter, as cowardly to face the results of having done so.
The Cardinal had not failed to mark the air of constraint and dispirited lassitude which had characterized the Marchese during the commencement of their conversation. And he, as others had done, attributed it to the supposition that the Marchese was very rapidly growing old—likely enough, was breaking up. Nor did he less observe the very notable change in him as their interview proceeded—the result, as the churchman flattered himself, of the charms of his own eloquence and felicitous manner. He was himself a good twenty years older than the Marchese; but he had been put into great good humour that morning by private letters accompanying the official despatch that has been mentioned, which had hinted at favourable possibilities in the future as to certain ambitious hopes that had rarely failed to busy his brain every night as he laid it on the pillow for many a year. So he smiled inwardly a gentle moralizing smile as he thought how gratified ambition had power to stir up the flagging passions and stimulate the sinking energies even as the golden bowl is on the eve of being broken.
The Marchese, however, left the Cardinal's presence a much happier man for the nonce than he had entered it, his mental vision filled with pictures of ribbons, stars and crosses, with, perhaps, a statue—between the two ancient columns in the Piazza Maggiore would be an excellent site—in the background.
Ah! if only he could have had the courage to run away from temptation.
On that Monday night all the world of Ravenna were assembled in the suite of state-rooms on the piano noble of the Palazzo di Castelmare. The cards of invitation had announced that masks would be welcomed by the noble host; and a large number of the younger portion of the society accordingly presented themselves in dominoes and the silk half-masks which are usually worn in conjunction with them. But very few of either ladies or gentlemen came in character. Such costumes were mostly reserved for the ball, which was to take place at the Circolo dei Nobili on the following evening. That was of course the wind-up of the Carnival; and besides it was felt, that a shade or two more of licence and of the ascendancy of the Lord of Misrule might fitly be permissible at the Circolo, than was quite de mise in the rooms of so grave and reverend a Signor as the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare.
A few determined revellers would lose no opportunity of enjoying the delight of dressing themselves up in costumes, which they deemed specially adapted to show off to advantage either their physical perfections or their intellectual and social pretensions. Sometimes, as may have been observed by those who have witnessed such revelries, it unfortunately happens that both the above desirable results are not quite compatible. Our friend the Conte Leandro, for instance, having determined to appear at the Circolo ball in the character of Dante—which, for a poet at Ravenna, was a very proper and natural selection—presented himself at the Palazzo Castelmare in that of Apollo—an equally well-imagined presentation; had it not been that the happy intellectual analogy was less striking to the vulgar eye, than the remarkable exhibition of knock-knees and bow-legs resulting from the use of the "fleshings;" which constituted an indispensable portion of the god's attire.
He carried in one hand what had very much the appearance of a gilt gridiron; but was intended to represent a lyre; and in the other a paper, which was soon known to contain a poem of congratulation addressed to the host, on the announcement which, all the city well knew by this time, had been made to him that morning.
The rooms were thronged with black dominoes, and white dominoes, and pink, and scarlet, and blue, and parti-coloured dominoes. Violante was there in a black domino, and Bianca in a white one. There was very little dancing, but plenty of chattering and laughing. One main thing to be done by every person there was to congratulate the host on his new honours. Our Conte Apollo, among the rest, would fain have read his poem on the occasion. But as he approached the Marchese for the purpose, a white silk domino, that was standing by the Marchese's side, burst into such an uncontrollable fit of silvery and most musical, but too evidently uncomplimentary laughter, that the poor god of song was too abashed by it to make head against it.
"Surely never had Apollo such a representative before," said the Marchese to his companion, as the mortified god turned away.
"The voice, the face, the lyre, and the legs; oh, the legs!" said the silvery voice of the white domino in return.
The words of both speakers had been uttered sotto voce; but the Conte Leandro had unfortunately sharp ears; and not only heard what was said, but was at no loss to recognize the voice of the second speaker.
The poor poet was destined not to find the evening an agreeable one. A little later he was passing by an ottoman in one of the less crowded rooms, on which the Marchese Ludovico was sitting with the Contessa Violante. She had, at an early period of the evening, abandoned all pretence of keeping up her incognito, and was dangling her black mask from her finger by its string as she sat talking to Ludovico. Leandro turned towards them to pay his compliments to the Contessa, and possibly in the hope of being allowed to read his copy of verses. But here again mortification awaited him.
"What, Aesop, Leandro! What put it into your head to choose the old story-teller for a model? You look the part to perfection, it is true; but what is that thing you have got in your hand?"
Again his lordship was fain to retreat.
"What a shame to torment the poor man so, in your own house too, Signor Ludovico," said Violante, who, nevertheless, could not help laughing.
"Not a bit, he's used to it. He is too absurd for anything; an egregious vain ass," returned Ludovico; with very little precaution to prevent the object of his animadversions from hearing them. And again Leandro's acute ears did him the ill service of carrying every word that had been said to his understanding.
"Indeed I think her perfectly charming," said Violante, in continuation of the conversation, which had been interrupted by the bow-legged vision of Apollo; "extremely pretty of course,—but a great deal more than that. She is fresh, ingenuous, modest, full of sensibility, and as honest-hearted as the day. You are a very fortunate man, Signor Ludovico, to have succeeded in winning such a heart."