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"'Refused her, of course, with thanks. So says the sonnet." Orazio went on to say all this in a calm, tranquil way, casting the bread of scandal on social waters as he puffed at his cigar. "It is very prettily rhymed the sonnet I have read it. The young Madonna is warmly painted. Now, why did Marescotti refuse to marry her? That is what I want to know."
It will be seen that the cavaliere's temper was rising with the sense of the intolerable injury Count Marescotti was inflicting on himself and all concerned. "I have undertaken a very serious responsibility; I have failed, you tell me. What am I to say to the marchesa?" His shrill voice rose into an angry cry. Altogether, it was more than he could bear.
Out of the ballroom you are capable of any imbecility." "Cavaliere!" cried Baldassare, turning very red and looking at him reproachfully. "You have deserved this reproof, young man," said the marchesa, harshly. "Learn your place in addressing the Count Marescotti."
Constant appeals to the sovereign people, a form of government where the few yielded to the many, and the rich divided their riches voluntarily with the poor was in theory what he advocated. Yet with these lofty views, these grand aspirations, with unbounded faith, and unbounded energy and generosity, Marescotti achieved nothing.
"There must be some extraordinary mistake. The cavaliere will explain it. Some enemies of your family must have misled Count Nobili, especially as there was a certain appearance of concealment respecting Count Marescotti. It will all come right. I only feared lest the language of that letter would have, in your opinion, rendered the marriage impossible."
As she bent her head to replace the basket, Marescotti, who had listened to Baldassare with evident disgust, raised the basket in his arms, and with the utmost care poised it on the coil of her dark hair. "Beautiful peasant," he said, "I salute you. This is for your mother," and he placed some notes in her hand.
From this roseate dream the poor cavaliere was abruptly roused. His outstretched hand had not been taken by Marescotti. It dropped to his side. Trenta looked up sharply. His countenance suddenly fell; a purple flush covered it from chin to forehead, penetrating even the very roots of his snowy hair. His cane dropped with a loud thud, and rolled away along the uncarpeted floor.
"I fear you have forgotten our appointment, count," recommences the cavaliere, finding that Marescotti is silent, and that his eyes have wandered off to the pages of the open book. "Not at all, not at all, my dear Trenta. On the contrary, had you not come, I was about to send for you. I have a very important matter to communicate to you." The cavaliere's face now breaks out all over into smiles.
It was a brilliant day of freshly fallen distant snow; the air keen and windless, with a feel of the sea as we went towards it. Yesterday P. D. P. took me to see a former Marescotti palace in the Via della Pigna. A very quiet aristocratic part of Rome, of narrow streets between high palaces, and little untraversed squares.
First Marescotti, then Nobili. Marescotti was a gentleman, but this fellow " She left the sentence incomplete. "Remember my words you are deceived in him." "At all events," retorted the cavaliere, "it is too late to discuss these matters now. Time presses. Enrica loves him. He insists on marrying her. You have no money, and cannot give her a portion.
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