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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Look here, child, I constitute you judge in the matter; our income is ten thousand francs." At these words I retired to the door, as if I were seized with a wild desire to examine the framed drawings which had attracted my attention. My discretion was rewarded by an eloquent glance. Alas! she did not know that in Fortunio I could have played the part of Sharp-Ears, who heard the truffles growing.
But madame, woman-like, returned to the matter whose abandoning she had herself suggested. Marius, for all his affected disdain of it, viewed it with a certain respect. And so in the end they sent for the recruit. Fortunio who was no other than the man Garnache had known as "Sanguinetti" brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had come.
Fortunio and Marius had departed, and the Marquise played upon by her unusual tremors had remained behind for a last word with the obstinate girl. "In what, madame," asked Valerie, "does my conduct fall short of reasonableness?" The Dowager made a movement of impatience.
That evening, after dinner, as we sat dozing over the fire in the library very imperfectly lighted my husband informed me that he had seen Rolandi, who had most strongly recommended a very gentlemanly man, moving in good society, namely, the Count Fortunio. I started in amazement; fortunately, owing to the half-light we were in, my surprise and confusion were unnoticed by my husband.
But Marius looked up suddenly, his eyes serious. "We have as good," said he. "There is the Italian knave Fortunio enrolled yesterday, as I have told you. He knows neither her wealth nor her identity; nor if he did could he enter into traffic with her, for he knows no French, and she no Italian." The Dowager clapped her hands. "The very man!" she cried.
Some of his lyrics are perfect; the famous song of Fortunio in itself entitles him to a high place among the masters of the language; and in his longer pieces especially in the four Nuits his emotion occasionally rises, grows transfigured, and vibrates with a strange intensity, a long, poignant, haunting note.
"We have sent for you, Fortunio," said he, in a blustering tone, "to inquire of you what price you'd ask to cut the throat of my brother, the Marquis de Condillac." The Seneschal sank back in his chair with a gasp. The captain, a frown between his frank-seeming, wide-set eyes, started round to look at the boy.
"And lest his own efforts to help his brother out of this world should prove insufficient he took Captain Fortunio with him?" said Valerie, in the same indifferent voice. "What do you mean?" the Marquise almost hissed into the girl's ear. Valerie turned to her, a faint colour stirring in her white face. "Just what I have said, madame. Would you know what I have prayed?
"For myself," laughed Fortunio, "I am ready for it now." "And I shall be when I have rested," answered Marius grimly. "Then get you both to rest, you will be needing it," she bade them. "And I, too, madame," said the Seneschal, bending over the hand she held out to him. "Good-night to you all."
Fortunio turned the key in the lock. Florimond gave his brother a long searching look, then with a sigh he picked up his sword where it lay ready to his hand and thoughtfully unsheathed it. Holding the hilt in one hand and the blade in the other he stood, bending the weapon like a whip, whilst again he searchingly regarded his brother. "Hear me a moment," said he.
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