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This aroused great indignation amongst the officers of the garrison in Florence, and no sooner did young Mansana hear the tale than he straightway left the café, and applied to his colonel for leave of absence for six days. This being granted him, he went home, bought himself a suit of plain clothes, and started away, then and there, by the shortest route for Rome.
Mansana forced himself to go through the inevitable political preliminaries with the old man; then turning suddenly to Amanda, changed the conversation by asking brusquely, "With whom were you disputing on the balcony last evening?"
And he vowed that henceforward his comrades should have something else to talk about besides the latest wild exploit of Giuseppe Mansana; and that he would keep before his mind a nobler ambition than the haughty satisfaction he derived from the consciousness that, whatever his own achievements might be, he never spoke of them or of himself.
Yes, of shadows; for what was it that urged him on but the obstinate pride, the ambition, the vindictiveness, which in the beginning are often associated with patriotism and in the end are apt to become its masters? Giuseppe Mansana understood this as he thought over his own case and that of hundreds of others who passed in review before his mind.
She sat close by her father's side, and spoke scarcely more than a few words just enough to reveal the exquisite sweetness of her voice. Afterwards Mansana met the pair daily, and the meetings were no longer accidental; he waited on the hill-side till he saw them ascending from the town, and then made his way to the bench. He enjoyed the quiet friendliness of their manner.
Ha, ha! he's a gay youth, is Luigi!" Mansana waited with impatience till he was alone again, then started hurriedly in quest of Major Sardi, the friend for whose companionship he had specially selected this garrison. He would discover from him details of Luigi's past career. These were not favourable.
The old gentleman talked willingly enough, though with a certain caution, about politics. When Mansana had listened to his remarks, he would say a few words to the daughter. The girl's growing likeness to her father was easy to trace. There was a sort of wrinkled fulness in the old face, which showed that its owner had once been a man of the sleek, rotund type.
But Sardi, almost immediately recovering his composure, represented to Mansana what an ugly sensation it would create, were he to fight a duel with him, or with any one else, over such a subject as his relationship with Amanda Brandini, the very day before leaving to celebrate his wedding with the Princess Leaney.
We have seen how Mansana bore himself in the funeral procession the next day, and we know now why he walked behind his father's bier with that elastic gait, that buoyant and springy step. He had expected to find in the woman he had insulted, an implacable adversary, and was prepared to meet her enmity with disdain.
Sardi followed, and, taking him by the arm, guided him quietly into a less frequented street. But Mansana paid no heed, and with loud voice and vigorous gesticulations, gave his secretly wounded egotism vent. "After all, what should I gain," he cried, "by becoming the husband of the Princess Leaney, the steward of her ladyship's estates, the slave of her ladyship's caprices?
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