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Gianbattista feared that Marzio had sent him upon this business for the sake of getting him out of the way, and he did not know what might happen in his absence. The artist might perhaps choose that time for going in search of Gasparo Carnesecchi in order to bring him to the house and precipitate the catastrophe which the apprentice still feared, in spite of the last events of the morning.
As I told you just now, I have always said that I would not marry with less than eighteen thousand francs of dowry. What is the use of repeating? Words are not roasted chestnuts." "Nor eighteen thousand francs either," answered the other. "Magari! I wish they were. You should have them in a moment. But a franc is a franc." "I did not say it was a cabbage," observed Carnesecchi.
Why do you want to turn me out, after promising for years that I should marry Lucia with your full consent when she was old enough?" "Why? because you have turned yourself out, to begin with. Secondly, because Carnesecchi is a better match for my daughter than a beggarly chiseller. Thirdly, because I please; and fourthly, because I do not care a fig whether you like it or not.
"I believe, Don Francis, that you know the way thither," she said. Very much affected, I kissed her hand again, and Father Carnesecchi, suggesting that she might be fatigued, took me away. My next visit to her was paid at the Villa San Giorgio, and on that occasion I saw her alone. Count Giraldi was, in fact, at that very hour, engaged with Virginia in my lodgings.
Gianbattista was not, perhaps, a model man, but, by contrast with Marzio, he seemed almost saintly. He had a good disposition and no vices; married to Lucia and devoted to his art, much might be expected of him. On the other hand, Gasparo Carnesecchi represented the devil in person. He was known to be an advanced freethinker, a radical, and, perhaps, worse than a radical a socialist.
To see her thrown into the arms of a man like Gasparo Carnesecchi was more than the priest's affection for his niece could bear. He hardly believed that Marzio would seriously think again of the scheme, and he entertained a hope that the subject would not even be broached for some time to come. Marzio continued to draw in silence, and after a few minutes, Don Paolo rose to take his leave.
His choice had fallen upon the thin lawyer by name Gasparo Carnesecchi who, according to the chiseller's views, was in all respects a most excellent match. A true freethinker, a practising lawyer with a considerable acquaintance in the world of politics, a discreet man not far from forty years of age, it seemed as though nothing more were required to make a model husband.
To-day its signification has been slightly modified, but a serious man un uomo serio still represents to the middle-class father the ideal of the correct son-in-law. "Eh, without prudence!" exclaimed Carnesecchi, elliptically, as though to ask where he himself would have been had he not possessed prudence in abundance.
"Who has twenty thousand francs?" laughed Marzio, shrugging his shoulders with an incredulous look. "You talk as though Rome were an asylum for paupers," returned Carnesecchi. "Who has twenty thousand francs? Why, everybody has. You have, I have. One must be a beggar not to have that much. After all, we are talking about business, Sor Marzio. Why should I not say it?
"What do you mean, Signor Pandolfi?" inquired Carnesecchi, drawing himself up to his full height and then striking his hollow chest with his lean hand. "Do you mean that I am begging money of you? Do you mean to insult an honest man, a galantuomo? By heaven, Signor Pandolfi, I would have you know that Gasparo Carnesecchi never asked a favour of any man! Do you understand? Let us speak clearly."
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