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The marchesa's manner was strange, almost menacing. Fra Pacifico led Enrica across the sala to her own door. When he returned, the marchesa was again reading Count Nobili's letter. "A love-match in the Guinigi family!" She was laughing with derision. "What are we coming to?" She tore the letter into innumerable fragments. "My father, I shall leave for Lucca early to-morrow.
At the four corners of the hall are four doorways corresponding to each other. Before each doorway hang curtains of Genoa velvet, embroidered in gold with the Guinigi arms surmounted by a princely coronet. Time has mellowed these once crimson curtains to dingy red.
"Then there was that other affair with the municipality about the right of flying the flag from the Guinigi Tower. I do not mention small affairs, such as disputes with your late steward at Corellia, trials at Barga, nor litigation here at Lucca on a small scale. My dear marchesa, you have found the law an expensive pastime." The cavaliere's round eyes twinkled as he said this.
Count Marescotti is not the man I should have selected for raising up heirs to the Guinigi. Now don't irritate me," she continued, with a disdainful glance at the cavaliere. "Have done with this folly. Do you hear?" "Enrica, Enrica!" groaned Trenta, who, always accustomed to obey her, began wiping his eyes they would, however, keep overflowing "O marchesa! how can I tell you?"
The latter refused, alleging her alliance with Florence; and Pagolo Guinigi, to regain the favor of the Florentines, which he imagined he had lost in the war with the duke and by his friendship for Filippo, not only refused assistance to Giusto, but sent his messenger prisoner to Florence.
What was going to happen? Would she faint? "I also bequeath," continued the marchesa, rising from her seat with solemn action, and speaking in a low, hushed voice, her eyes fixed on the floor "I also bequeath the great Guinigi name and our ancestral honors to my niece to bear them after my death, together with her husband, then to pass to her eldest child. And may that great name be honored!"
Nicodemus either I affirm that," answered she, angrily. Her temper was rising. "I will not be contradicted, cavaliere don't attempt it. I never allow it. Even my husband never contradicted me and he was a Guinigi. Is the city to go mad, eat, drink, and hang out old curtains because the priests bid them? Did you see Nobili's house?"
Malatesta gave a low whistle. "Enrica Guinigi! Is not that the marchesa's niece?" asked Orsetti; "a pretty, fair-faced girl I see driving with her aunt on the ramparts sometimes?" "The same," answered Malatesta. "But what, in the name of all the devils, could Marescotti know of her? No one has ever spoken to her."
A badge or baldric is passed across his chest; he is otherwise so enveloped with gold-lace, embroidery, buttons, trencher, and cocked-hat, that the whole inner man is absorbed, not to say invisible. This particular Guinigi Palace belongs to Count Mario Nobili. He bought it of the Marchesa Guinigi, who lives opposite. Nobili is the richest young man in Lucca.
The marriage about to take place was to the marchesa the resurrection of the Guinigi name. To Fra Pacifico it was the possible rescue of Enrica from a life of suffering, perhaps an early death. To Guglielmi it was the triumph of the keen lawyer, who had tracked and pursued his prey until that prey had yielded. The only person not outwardly affected was the marchesa.
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