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This was addressed to the marchesa, who had caught him by the tails of his immaculate blue coat and forced him into a seat beside her. "Vive la bagatelle! Where shall we go? You cannot refuse the count," he added, giving the marchesa a meaning look. "What shall we do? Let us all propose something. Let me see. I propose to improve Enrica's mind. She is young the young have need of improvement.
The marchesa's manner was strange, almost menacing. Fra Pacifico led Enrica across the sala to her own door. When he returned, the marchesa was again reading Count Nobili's letter. "A love-match in the Guinigi family!" She was laughing with derision. "What are we coming to?" She tore the letter into innumerable fragments. "My father, I shall leave for Lucca early to-morrow.
She paled a little as she understood this must be the sequel to what she had done, but she held her head high, and there was a light of defiance in the blue eyes. "I have to speak to you very seriously." The Marchesa, a large woman, was slow and deliberate in all her movements.
Then the marchesa, as if by a violent effort, so sudden was her movement, and so wild her look, turned her face to her wooer, and came up to him, where he stood. "Oh," she said, clasping her hands, "is this true? You would save me from disgrace, from a prison and what can I give you in return? My love! No, no. I will not deceive you.
Pipa, who, next to Adamo and the marchesa, loved Enrica with all the strength of her warm heart, sings all day those unwritten songs of Tuscany that rise and fall with such spontaneous cadence among the vineyards, and in the olive-grounds, that they seem bred in the air Pipa sings all day for gladness that the signorina is going to marry a rich and handsome gentleman.
"As sure as that I like meat, and only get it on Sundays. Sure? I have seen it with my own eyes. Checco knows the granddaughter of the man who helps the cook Nobili pays like a lord, as he is! He spends his money, he does! Nobili writes to the niece, and she answers. Listen. To-day, the marchesa shut up her palace and put a chain on the door. But chains can be unloosed, locks broken.
And now in mid-June they are at home again, since Sorrento is their home now, and they are inclined to take a turn with the pleasure boats by way of a change and engage themselves for the summer, Ruggiero with a gentleman from the north of Italy known as the Conte di San Miniato, and Sebastiano with a widowed Sicilian lady and her daughter, the Marchesa di Mola and the Signorina Beatrice Granmichele, generally, if incorrectly, spoken of as Donna Beatrice.
"I fought for the ancient privileges of the Guinigi!" burst out the marchesa, imperiously. "I would do it again." "I do not in the least doubt you would do it again, exalted lady," responded Trenta, with a quiet smile. "Indeed, I feel assured of it. I merely state the fact. You have sacrificed large sums of money. You have lost every suit. The costs have been enormous.
"Have I not reared you as my own child?" cries the marchesa too excited to remain silent in the presence of her victim. "Have you ever left my side? Yet under my ancestral roof you have dared to degrade yourself. Out upon you! Go, go or with my own hand I shall drive you into the street!"
If you had the heart of a man, you could not do it!" "It is because I have the heart of a man, I will not suffer degradation!" cried Nobili. "It is because I have the heart of a man, I will not sink into an unworthy tool! This is why I refuse to live with her. She is one of a vile conspiracy. She has joined with the marchesa against me. I have been forced to marry her. I will not live with her!"
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