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As it is so long ago, and the Principal Parties in the Affair are all Dead, I don't mind disclosing that my Instructions from his Eminence the Cardinal were to Buy the Cavaliere di San Lorenzo at any Price.
"Per Bacco!" whispered the cavaliere to the marchesa, sitting near her on the other side; "I am convinced poor Marescotti has never touched a morsel of food since that mass I am certain of it. He always lives upon a poetical diet, poor devil! rose-leaves and the beauties of Nature, with a warm dish now and then in the way of a ragoût of conspiracy. God help him! he's a greater lunatic than ever."
In 1754 the Pope knighted him; made him Cavaliere, and henceforth this once poverty-smitten street fiddler and strolling singer was known as Ritter von Gluck, the friend and protégé of his countrywoman, Marie Antoinette. No children were born to the couple, but they took into their home a niece, and Gluck's wife devoted much of her time to the poor. "He left his wife the chief heir.
"My admiration for women," replied the count, "has hitherto been purely aesthetic. You, cavaliere, cannot understand the discrepancies of an artistic nature. Women have been to me heretofore as beautiful abstractions. I have adored them as I adore the works of the great masters.
Startled by this unexpected violence, the young artist turned round, and beheld with amazement the usually benign featutes of his venerable teacher flashing upon him with irrepressible anger, which was the more impressive because the Cavaliere had just returned from a visit to the Doge, and was richly attired in the imposing patrician costume of the period.
This Pipa repeats at intervals in gasps. "Come, Pipa, that will do," says the cavaliere, poking at her with his stick "I must get back before I am missed no one must know it till morning least of all the marchesa and Guglielmi. They are shut up together. The marchesa says she will sit up all night. But Count Nobili and his wife are gone really gone. Fra Pacifico managed it.
There are many indications of a passionate nature about her; but she has, evidently, so many adorers that she cannot have a favorite. If suspicion rested on two or three of her intimates, we might say that one or other of them was the "cavaliere servente"; but it does not. The lady is a mystery. She is married, though none of us have seen her husband.
Fra Pacifico, his full, broad face perfectly unmoved, and Cavaliere Trenta, who watched the scene nervously with troubled, twinkling eyes, placed themselves on either side of Count Nobili. Ser Giacomo had already slipped round behind the sofa, and seated himself at a table placed against the wall, the marriage-contract spread out before him. There was an awkward pause.
Never had Olympia looked more beautiful. Her lover's eyes met hers with an answering glow, and they under- stood each other. There was a mo- ment of silence, delicious to their souls, and impossible to describe. They sat down on the same bench where they had sat in the presence of the Cavaliere Paluzzi and the "Devil take it! Our Rinaldo has vanished!" cried Lousteau.
"When I'm a man I shall ride in these carriages," he said; whereat the other laughed and returned good-humouredly: "Eh, that's not so much to boast of, cavaliere; I shall ride in a carriage one of these days myself." Odo stared, not over-pleased, and the boy added: "When I'm carried to the churchyard, I mean," with a chuckle of relish at the joke.
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