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Artois said, sharply. Giulia's round, black eyes filled with tears, and her mouth opened in surprise. He put his hand kindly on her arm. "Never mind, Giulia mia! But it is foolish to talk like that. There is no reason why evil should come upon the Casa del Mare. Here is Gaspare!" At that moment he entered, looking tragic. "Go away, Giulia!" he said to her, roughly. "Ma " "Go away!"
This was one of the greatest triumphs of Giulia's romantic life she had overcome the opposition of another pope, and one who had been the enemy of Alexander VI, and the man who had ruined Cæsar.
"Thou shalt be more than thy sister, my Giuliettina," she would exclaim. "Thou shalt be more than thy aunt! It is Giuditta tells thee so believe it." The only defect in Giulia's voice certainly a serious one was a chronic hoarseness, which seemed a bar to her advancement as a vocalist.
I sat by her side in the little saloon which had been Donna Giulia's boudoir, and served Aurelia now for the same purpose; and judging honesty the kindest, and only, course, I told her everything of my defence of Virginia, hinting at the same time at my suspicions of Count Giraldi.
"The marquis is an unworthy reckless unprincipled young man," exclaimed the count, fixing a stern, searching gaze upon Giulia's countenance, as if with the iron of his words he would probe the depths of her soul. "He is a confirmed gamester overwhelmed with debts and has tarnished, by his profligacy, the proud name that he bears.
"I will explain myself," returned Orsini, who was a perfect adept in the art of dissimulation, and who, never losing his presence of mind, embraced at a glance the whole danger of Giulia's position and his own, and the probability that their conversation might have been overheard; "I was explaining to her ladyship the temporary embarrassment under which I lay, and from which I hoped that your friendship might probably release me "
Signor Lanari, an impressario of Florence, recognized the future success of the inexperienced young girl, and decoyed her into an engagement for six years on terms shamefully low, for Giulia's modesty did not appreciate her own remarkable powers. Alone and without competent advisers, she fell an easy prey to the sharp-witted farmer of other people's genius.
But she left me there, as I waited in the saloon open to the shadowed garden; and I knew not whether I felt her the more certainly for her absence than for her former persistent company. The servant, an old one of Donna Giulia's, who knew me well by sight, had grimaced pleasantly as he saluted. "Buon di, signoria," he had said, and "Servitore del 'lustrissimo."
Giulia's anguish had risen to that point at which such feelings become intolerable, and suggest the most desperate remedies suicide, when a low knock behind the pale-blue arras suddenly imparted hope to her soul. "Have you succeeded?" was Giulia's rapid question.
Giulia's dowry consisted of three thousand gold florins, a large amount for that time. The civil marriage of the young couple took place the following day, May 21st, in this same palace of the Borgias. Many great nobles were present, among whom were specially mentioned the kinsmen of the groom, Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini and Raynaldo Orsini, Archbishop of Florence.
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