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They do say that it rains a good deal in those mountains well, when it rains, you can write to Signor Ghisleri, while I write to Don Gianluca." Her innocent laughter at the idea startled Bianca, and the beautiful face grew paler, until it was almost wan. Veronica thought she was like a passion flower, just then. A short silence followed.
"But I scarcely know him and I have heard nothing about it. Have they spoken of the marriage?" "Yes." They were interrupted by a servant, who came quickly down from the house. The man asked if the princess would receive Baron Taquisara. Bianca ordered him to be admitted, and told the man to ask Ghisleri to come back from the stables. "Do you know Taquisara?" she asked Veronica. "A Sicilian?
He had talked very much like any one else, and not at all as he had talked at that first meeting. Veronica felt that she was indifferent. Bosio's untimely death had terribly changed the face of the world for her, she thought. A cold listlessness, unfamiliar to her nature, came over her when the two men were gone. Before long Ghisleri appeared, and there was tea and more conversation.
I am his friend," he answered, scarcely above a whisper, as she went by. He came back, shook hands with Bianca, bowed coldly to Veronica, and left the room within two minutes after Gianluca. "What is the matter with Taquisara?" asked Ghisleri, carelessly. "He seems irritable." Bianca looked at Veronica. "Does he? I suppose he is anxious about Don Gianluca."
His elder brother was the Duca di Norba, the father of another Girolamo, who succeeded him many years later, of Gianforte Campodonico, and of the beautiful Bianca, in whose short, sad life Pietro Ghisleri afterwards held so large a part. But of these latter persons, some were then not yet born, and others were in their infancy, so that they play no part in this portion of the present history.
Bianca had been her friend, in a way, but Bianca's life was mysterious to her, and Pietro Ghisleri had come between the two.
"It was lying about at the Princess Corleone's. I took it by mistake, I suppose, with my things. I believe that Signor Ghisleri brought it to show her, one day. I think he said it had been used." She threw off her leathern jacket, and tossed the other things aside. "Let us fence a little every day," she said. "That is, if you will really fence, instead of playing with me."
Again and again, on the way, she was on the point of stopping the carriage and returning. It all looked so different, at the last minute, from what she had expected. It was raining, and she should find Bianca indoors. Probably she would be sitting in her boudoir, beyond the drawing-room, and Pietro Ghisleri would be with her.
"I would rather that you should not say those things to me," said Veronica, a little pale, and turning half round as though she would go back to Bianca and Ghisleri. "Forgive me for I have risked such opinion of me as you may have, to say them. There may be reasonable doubt about them. But of the rest there is no doubt.
She rose as calmly as a married woman, many years older than she, might have done, and Taquisara was on his feet at the same moment. She led the way down to the marble steps that descended to the sea, and stood on the uppermost one, looking out. Bianca and Ghisleri watched her in surprise and Bianca made a slight movement, as though to follow, but then leaned back again.
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