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On the morrow of the Marchese's ball was the great day of the arrival of the divine songstress. And it was as lovely a day for the gala doings, which had been arranged in honour of the occasion, as could be desired. A brilliant sun in a cloudless sky made the afternoon quite warm and genial, despite the general cold. An Italian sun can do this. Where he shines not it may be freezing.
Neither could a social objection to the Marchese's bachelorhood be raised on the score of any such laxity of moral conduct as the world is wont to expect, and to tolerate with more or less of indulgence, in persons so free from special ties.
The count taking him as you take him knows that I have no intentions but honest ones towards Donna Aurelia; taking him as I take him he will defend me. No, my child, this is the marchese's affair. I can see that he has been after you from the time he saw you playing the handsome lady at Prato. He thinks he has you, but I will show him that he is wrong.
To no soul had he whispered a word of the Marchese's very marked reluctance to attend at the trial, save to his old and intimate friend of many years standing, the Professor Tomosarchi, whom he had thought it advisable to consult as to the desirability of his seeing the Marchese before he was called on to make the effort.
Moreover, I have been obliged to tell everything to my servant Johann, who waylays the marchese's housekeeper at market in the mornings, and finds out from her when and where I can have an opportunity of meeting Bianca. I would rather not have trusted him; but I could think of no other plan."
Crossing the stable-yard for this purpose, the lawyer was accosted by Niccolo the groom, who was engaged in doing his office on a handsome bay mare at the stable-door. Niccolo was the oldest servant in the establishment, having filled the same place he now held under the Marchese's father.
This position, as it chanced, brought the Marchese's eye to bear on the little glass window made in the back of the hood of the carriage, after the old-fashioned manner of coach-building. And what he saw through the little window was this.
Ix passing through the hall of the Palazzo the lawyer, who was well acquainted with every servant in the house, took an opportunity of speaking a few words to the Marchese's old valet, Nanni. "The Marchese seems to have been a little overtired when he came back from the ball this morning, Nanni; and then this is a sad affair about the Marchese Ludovico." "Ahi, misericordia!
Vere laughed, and suddenly made her eyes look very round, and staring, and impudent. "He's like that, Gaspare," she said. "Vere!" said her mother. Then she added to Gaspare: "The Marchese is a friend of Don Emilio's. Ah! and here is a letter from Don Emilio." It was lying beside the Marchese's card with some other letters.
My gracious master gave him to know by long letters how matters were speeding with him, and of a certainty told him how that the old Marchese and his nephews, malicious knaves, came to blows with us at Padua by reason of the old Marchese's young and fair lady, who held my gracious master so dear that all Padua talked thereof.
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