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This, in the midst of his warfare, was a respite full of delights; he spent three months at the Villa Gandolphini, rocked in hope. Rodolphe then began again to construct his fortune.
The carriage, which the lover followed with his eyes as he climbed the hill, turned in at the gate of a country house, towards which he ran. "Who lives here?" he asked the gardener. "Prince and Princess Colonna, and Prince and Princess Gandolphini." "Have they not just driven in?" "Yes, sir." In that instant a veil fell from Rodolphe's eyes; he saw clearly the meaning of the past.
Serious steps had to be taken, and the Pope's interest in the Colonna family was invoked, to obtain permission from the foreign powers and the King of Naples for the Prince and Princess Gandolphini to live here. Geneva is anxious to do nothing to displease the Holy Alliance to which it owes its independence.
Prince Colonna has come to see his daughter and his son-in-law Prince Gandolphini, a Neopolitan, or if you like, a Sicilian, an old adherent of King Murat's, and a victim of the last revolution. These are the last arrivals at Geneva, and they are not Milanese.
He asked for Prince Gandolphini, sending in his card, and was immediately received by the false Lamporani, who came forward to meet him, welcomed him with the best possible grace, and took him to walk on a terrace whence there was a view of Geneva, the Jura, the hills covered with villas, and below them a wide expanse of the lake.
Princess Colonna's haughtiness, so evidently natural to her, alarmed Rodolphe, who would find enemies in Francesca's father and mother at least so he might expect; and the secrecy which Princess Gandolphini had so strictly enjoined on him now struck him as a wonderful proof of affection. By not choosing to compromise the future, had she not confessed that she loved him?
Her elder sister had been betrothed to Prince Gandolphini, one of the richest landowners in Sicily; and Francesca was married to him instead, so that nothing might be changed in the position of the family. The Colonnas and Gandolphinis had always intermarried.
This order was stern, but it was obeyed, for it was Francesca's will. On his return to Paris Rodolphe found in his rooms a portrait of Princess Gandolphini painted by Schinner, as Schinner can paint. The artist had passed through Geneva on his way to Italy.
Do you imagine that I can wish to see you one day exchange the fine name of Gandolphini for that of a man who is a nobody? I want to become one of the most remarkable men of my country, to be rich, great that you may be as proud of my name as of your own name of Colonna." "I should be grieved to see you without such sentiments in your heart," she replied, with a bewitching smile.
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