The Signora Fagiani's first attempt at finding a remedy for this state of things consisted of a vigorous endeavour to persuade her pupil that her own estimate of her personal appearance was altogether a mistaken one. All the former experience of the old lady led her to consider this an easy task. And she was much surprised to find that her insinuations, assertions, and persuasions on this subject were totally thrown away on her pupil. The precious gift of personal vanity had been denied to poor Violante; and she saw herself somewhat more unfavourably than others saw her.

Then the duenna changed her tactics; and strove to point out how very little a pretty face signified to any girl in the position of the Contessa di Marliani. To a poor girl, indeed, whose face was her fortune, it was another matter. But the niece of the Cardinal Legate! Bah! Did she imagine that she would lack suitors? She had nothing to do but to make the most of the advantages in her hand, and she would see herself surrounded by all the beaux, while the prettiest girls in the room might go whistle for the smallest scrap of attention, And then, when married, with rank, station, wealth at her command, what would it signify?

And in urging all these considerations, the Signora Assunta Fagiani spoke at least sincerely, and expended for the benefit of her pupil the best wisdom that was in her.

Partly, however, she was working for her own purposes, as well as for the advantage, as she understood it, of her charge. Of course, as she judiciously considered, her position gave her, in a great degree, the valuable patronage of the disposal of the Lady Violante's hand in marriage. And, of course, this advantage of her position was equally well understood by others; and among these by a certain Duca di San Sisto, a Bolognese noble, whose sadly- dilapidated fortunes much needed the aid that might be derived from the coffers of the wealthy Cardinal Legate. The Duca di San Sisto had interests at Rome also, which might be most importantly served by the influence of the Cardinal Marliani. So that a marriage with the Lady Violante seemed to be exactly the very thing for him. But the cautious, and carefully-masked inquiries which the Duke had set on foot, after the fashion in which such things are done in Italy, had brought him the information that a marriage was almost as good as arranged between the lady in question and the Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare, an old acquaintance of the family. Were it not for that impediment, the Duke thought that he might have good reason to hope that his plan might succeed.

Now it so happened that the Signora Assunta Fagiani was an old friend of the Duca di San Sisto; and when the widow of the professor of jurisprudence was promoted to the important post she held in the household of the Marchesa Lanfredi, that nobleman did not fail to find means for securing the continuance of her friendship. It was the object and purpose, therefore, of Signora Assunta Fagiani that the Lady Violante should become in due time Duchessa di San Sisto, and not Marchesa di Castelmare. But she understood her position quite well enough to be aware that the end she had in view must be approached cautiously and patiently.

Violante had, of course, been informed at the proper time that her family destined her to become the wife of the young Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare. Now, if Violante's temper and disposition had been other than it was; had she been able to think of herself differently from what she did; had it been possible for her, in a word, to have supposed that the Marchese Ludovico loved her, he was the man whom she could most readily have taught herself to love. They had been, to a certain degree, acquaintances from an early period of their childhood. He was the only young man she had ever known with anything like the same degree of intimacy; and Ludovico, as we know, was not devoid of qualities calculated to win a lady's love.

But Violante knew right well that Ludovico did not love her, and that there had never been any probability that he should do so; and, had she any lingering doubt on the subject, the good Assunta took very good care to dispel it. And there was a bitterness in this knowledge which did much towards producing in Violante the state of mind that has been described. She was not in love with Ludovico, but she had liked him—he was the only man she had ever liked at all. She knew that she was to be married to him if he could be persuaded to marry her, and if she were sufficiently obedient to marry him. She thought that no man could ever love her, and she knew very certainly that this man did not. Her own hope and firmest purpose, therefore, was, if such resistance to the higher authorities might in any way be possible to her, to avoid a marriage with Ludovico di Castelmare: if possible to her, she would fain escape from any marriage at all. If this should be altogether impossible, then the Duca di San Sisto, as well as anybody else. It was not that she had any hope that the Duca di San Sisto would love her: but, at least, it had not been proposed to him to love her, and found impossible by him to do so. At least the unloving husband would not be the one man whom she felt she might have loved had he deemed it worth his while to ask her love.

Yet, with all this, Violante had not learned, as perhaps most women in her place would have done, to bate Ludovico for having found it impossible to love her,—for having condemned her to feel the spreta injuria forma, which so few of the sex can ever forgive. Had she ever reached the point of loving him it might, perhaps, have been otherwise. As it was, she was too gentle, too humble, in her estimate of her own worth and power of attraction to be angry with him: and yet she was sufficiently interested in the matter to listen not unwillingly to all the gossip that the Signora Assunta poured into her ear about Ludovico, tending to show that he was unworthy of pretending to her hand.

Assunta's object, of course, was to break the match with the Marchese di Castelmare for the sake of bringing on one with the Duca di San Sisto.

Violante's object, it has been said, was to avoid any marriage at all—specially that immediately proposed to her; and the stories, which from time to time Assunta brought her of the goings on of Ludovico, had a double interest for Violante. In some sort, all such intelligence was acceptable to her, as tending to make it unlikely that her only escape from a loveless marriage with him would be by her own resistance to the wishes of her family. Yet, at the same time, it was bitter to her, and ministered an unwholesome aliment to her morbid self-depreciation.



CHAPTER XI

The Cardinal's Reception, and the Marchese's Ball

On the first day of the New Year, according to long-established custom, there was a grand reception in the evening at the palace of the Cardinal Legate. It was to be, as always on that occasion, a very grand affair. All the diamonds, and all the old state carriages, and all the liveries in Ravenna were put in requisition. Old coats, gorgeously bedizened with broad worsted lace of brilliant colours, and preserved for many a year carefully, but not wholly successfully, against time and moth, were taken by fours and fives from, the cypress-wood chests in old family mansions, where they lay in peace from year's end to year's end if no marriage or other great family solemnity intervened to give them an extra turn of service, and were used to turn dependants of all sorts into liveried servants for the nonce; and nobody imagined or hoped that anybody else would look upon this display as anything else than absolute and frank ostentation. Nobody supposed that any human being would be led into believing that this state indicated the ordinary mode of life of the persons who exhibited it. Everybody in Italy has been for so many generations so very much poorer than his forefathers were, that such a state of things has long since been accepted by universal consent as a normal one; and it is understood on all hands that these fitful displays of the remnants of former grandeur, this vain revisiting of the glimpses of the moon by the ghosts of long-departed glories, shall be taken and allowed as protests on behalf of the bearers of old noble names to the effect that their ancestors did really once live in a style conformable to their ideas—that they perfectly know how these things should be done, and would be found quite prepared to resume their proper state, if only the good old days of prosperity should come again.

And there is the good as well as the seamy side (not, alas, to the old liveries! for they had been mostly turned and turned again too often); but to the feelings and social manners which prompted such a manifestation of them. At least, in such a condition of social manners and feelings mere wealth was not installed on the throne of Mammon in the eyes of all men. If one of the old coaches was more pitiably rickety than the rest; if the ancient-fashioned coat of some long-descended marchese was itself as threadbare as the old family liveries; if some widowed contessa had crept out from the last habitable corner of her dilapidated palazzo, where she was known to live on a modicum of chicory-water, brought in a tumbler from the nearest cafe, and a crust; not on any such account was there the smallest tendency towards a derisive smile on the lip, or in the mind of any man, at these pitiable attempts to keep up appearances, which everybody considered it right to keep up. Not on any such account was the stately courtesy of the Legate's reception in the smallest degree modified. It was subject, indeed, to many modifications; but these were wholly irrespective of any such circumstances.

There is a peculiar sort of naivete about Italian ostentation, which robs it of all its offensiveness. Nobody exhibits their finery or grandeur for the sake of crushing another; nobody feels themselves crushed by the exhibition of it. The old noble who turns out his gala liveries and other bedizenments on a festal day, does it to make up his part of the general show, which is for the gratification of all classes, and is a gratification to them. But it is a curious commentary of the past history of Italy that, as between city and city, there is the feeling, the wish, and the ambition, to crush and humble a rival community by superior magnificence.

Nobody expected much immediate gratification from attending the Cardinal's reception. There was little to be done save to bow to the host and to each other. Ices were handed round—none the less because it was bitterly cold—and cakes and comfits. Old Contessa Carini, who had a grandchild at home, and no money to buy bonbons with, emptied half a plateful of them into her handkerchief,-.the old servant who handed them helping her; and the Cardinal, who happened to be standing by, smilingly telling her to give the little one his benediction with them. The brave old Contessa still kept her carriage, as it became a Carini to do; though she starved her poor old shrivelled body to enable her to keep her half-starved horses. And "society" gave her its applause for struggling so hard to do that which it became her to do in the state of life to which it had pleased God to call her; and no soul in the room dreamed of thinking the less of her because of the sharp poverty that confessed itself in her eagerness to make the most of the opportunity of the Legate's hospitality.

The Conte Leandro Lombardoni had a bilious headache the following morning in consequence of overcramming himself with cakes and sweetmeats. One active-minded old gentleman originated the remark that the cold was greater than had been known in Ravenna for the last seven years; and this fact, repeated again and again by most of the company to each other, supplied the material of conversation for the first half-hour. Then somebody, alluded to the circumstance that, whereas it had been said that La Lalli was to have arrived before the end of the year, the fact was, that she had not yet come: and thereupon the Marchese Lamberto had authoritatively declared that the lady had been detained by an unforeseen circumstance of no importance, and would infallibly reach Ravenna on the evening of the 3rd.

And thenceforward this interesting news formed the sole topic of conversation till the carriages were ordered; and all the finery was taken home again to be laid up in lavender till that day twelvemonth.

There was to be, also according to annual custom, the first ball of the Carnival at the Palazzo Castelmare on the following evening; but for this the state trappings reserved for the Legate's reception on the Capo d'Anno, were not required.

The balls given by the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare every Carnival were the grand and principal gaieties of Ravenna. The whole of the "society" were invited, and to be prevented from going by illness or any other contretemps was a misfortune to be lamented during all the rest of the year. At the Palazzo Castelmare people really did expect to enjoy themselves. There was dancing for the young, cards for the old, and eating and drinking for all. For the Palazzo Castelmare was the only house in Ravenna at which suppers were ever given. There three balls and three handsome suppers were provided for all the society of Ravenna every year! And the first of these always took place on the 2nd of January; the Capo d'Anno being left for the state reception at the Legate's palace.

Well might little Signor Ercole Stadione say, what would become of Ravenna if anything were to happen to the Marchese Lamberto!

All the people came much about the same time; and there was then half an hour or so, before the dancing commenced, during which the main object and amusement of the assemblage was to escape from misfortune, which it was well known the Conte Leandro meditated inflicting on the society. He was known to have written a poem for the opening of the new year, which was then in his pocket, and which he purposed reading aloud to the company, if he only could get a chance! He was looking very pale, and more sodden and pasty about the face than usual, from the effects of his excesses at the Legate's the night before. But his friends had no hope that this would save them from the poem, if he could in anywise obtain a hearing.

"Take care, he is putting his hand in his coat-pocket! That's where it is, you know; he'll have it out in half an instant, if we stop talking! Oh, Contessina, you are always so ready! Do invent something to stop him, for the love of heaven!" said a young man to a bright-looking girl next him.

"Oh, Signor Leandro, since you are riconciliato con bel sesso," said the Contessina, alluding to words which, to the great amusement of all Ravenna, Leandro had written in the album of a lady who asked the poet for his autograph,—"since you are reconciled to the fair sex, will you be very kind and see if I have left my fan where I put off my shawl in the ante-room?"

"Bravo, Contessina; now let us get to another part of the room, before he gets back. Oh, Ludovico," he continued, addressing the young Marchese Castelmare, whom they encountered as they were crossing the room, "for the love of heaven, let us begin! Make the musicians strike up, or we shall have Leandro in full swing in another minute!"

"I assure you, Signor Ludovico, the danger is imminent!" said the Contessina.

"When I saw him at work last night at the Cardinal's pastry, I thought he must have made himself too ill to come here to-night," said the former speaker; "but I suppose poets can digest what would kill you or me!"

"If Leandro begins to read, I vote we all are seized with an invincible fit of sneezing," said another of the grown-up children.

"Well, we may as well begin at once; I will go and tell the Contessa Violante that we are ready," said Ludovico, moving off.

It was a matter of course, that he should open the ball with the Contessa Violante,—not only by reason of her social standing in the city, but because of the position in which he was understood to stand towards her.

Violante was sitting at the upper end of the room between her great- aunt and the sister of the Marchese Lamberto, Ludovico's mother. She was very handsomely dressed in plain white silk, but was looking pale and dispirited. When Ludovico came up and offered his arm, bowing low as he did so, she rose and accepted it without speaking.

"I had almost made up my mind," she said as soon as they had moved a pace or two towards the middle of the large ball-room, "not to dance at all to-night: I am not well."

"Oh, Signorina, how unfortunate! What a disappointment! But it would be cruel to force you to dance, when it is against your inclination," said Ludovico, with a very unsuccessful attempt to put a tone of tenderness into his voice.

"I will not do so, after this dance," said Violante; "but I suppose we must dance the first dance together!"

"I am sorry it should be a matter of such disagreeable duty to you, Signora Violante," said Ludovico in a tone of pretended pique.

"It is equally disagreeable to me to dance with any other partner; I am not well, as I have told you, Signor Ludovico; I have no business to be here; I think my health becomes weaker from day to day. And the blessed Saints only know when it may be possible to think of carrying into effect the arrangements desired by our parents!"

"I am sure that mine would not wish to urge you on the subject to— to decide more quickly than you would wish to. I can assure you, Signora, nothing would be more contrary to my own feelings than to do any such violence to yours. Indeed I may say—"

"Yes, yes! I think I understand all about it, Signor Ludovico. Might it not be possible to find means of pleasing all parties in this matter, if only all parties understood each other, Signor Ludovico?"

She dropped her voice almost to a whisper as she said these last words, with a rapid furtive glance at his face.

"And now," she added, speaking in a louder tone, we had better give our minds to the present scene of the farce, and perform the opening quadrille, as is expected of us!"

"I am truly sorry, Signora, that you should be called upon to do this sort of thing, when you are so unwell, as to make it even more disagreeable than it might be to you otherwise. But believe me," continued he, speaking in a low voice, and with an emphasis that indicated that his words had reference rather to what she had spoken to him in a similar tone than to the words of his own which had immediately preceded them,—"believe me that it is my wish to meet your wishes in all respects."

There was a jesuitism in this speech, which did not recommend it or its speaker to the Contessa Violante. She would have been far better pleased by a more open reply to the confidence which she had half offered. She only said in reply:

"I am disposed to think, that such is the case in the matter which more nearly concerns us both, Signor Ludovico, than anything else. But—although we knew just now that we had to dance together, it was you who had to ask me, you know, and not I you. Very little active power of influencing her own destiny is allowed to a girl; come, we had better attend now to the business in hand!"

There was nothing more, except such ordinary words between each other or the others dancing in the same set, as the dance itself led to, spoken by the Contessa and Ludovico. The former declined all other invitations to dance, and went home at the earliest moment she could induce her aunt to do so.

There was much talk going on in all parts of the room as to the announced coming of the great singer on the morrow. The young men settled together the last details of their plans for the triumphal entry of the "Diva;" and the ladies were by no means uninterested in hearing all that their cavaliers had to tell them on this subject. Much was said, too, about the qualities of La Lalli both as a singer and as a woman. Everybody agreed that she was admirable in the first respect; and there was not a man there, who had not some anecdote to tell, which he had heard from the very best authority, tending to set forth the rare perfection of her beauty, and the wonderful power of fascination she exercised on all who came near her.

She was to arrive quite early on the morrow. It was understood that she purposed passing the previous night,—that night in short, which those who were discussing her were spending at the Castelmare ball, at the little town of Bagnacavallo, a few miles only from Ravenna. Such a scheme looked,—or would have looked in the eyes of any other people than Italians,—rather ridiculously like the ways and fashions of royal progresses, and state entries into cities. But the Ravenna admirers of the coming "Diva" neither saw nor suspected the slightest absurdity; and it is to be supposed that La Lalli knew all the importance of first impressions, and that she did not choose to show herself to her new worshippers for the first time under all the disadvantages of arriving tired and dusty from a long journey.



CHAPTER XII

The Arrival of the "Diva"

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. As soon as he has made his somewhat precipitous exit from the hard blue sky, the temperature will suddenly fall some ten degrees or more. But as long as he is in glory overhead, it is summer in the midst of winter.

Three o'clock had been named as the hour at which the coming "Diva" would reach the city gates. But the plans which the young habitues of the Circolo had arranged for receiving her, had been in some degree modified. The scheme of harnessing their noble selves to her chariot-wheels had been abandoned; and instead of that it had been understood that the Marchese Lamberto would himself go in his carriage to meet her a few miles out of the city and bring her in. The Marchese Ludovico and the young Barone Manutoli were to accompany the Marchese Lamberto, and to assist in receiving the lady; but were to return to the city in the carriage which she would leave, on getting into that of the Marchese, or in any other way that might seem good to them. The Marchese Lamberto and the lady alone were to occupy his handsome family equipage. There was to be a band of music in attendance, which would precede the carriage as it entered the city; and some half-dozen young officers of a regiment of Papal cavalry, which chanced to be then stationed at Ravenna, intended to ride at each door of the carriage as it returned to the city. Altogether it was to be a very brilliant affair. And all the gay world of Ravenna was on the tiptoe of expectation and delight.

The Marchese Lamberto, indeed, looked upon his share in the pageant as a great bore. He had had put off one or two more congenial occupations for the purpose of doing on the occasion his part of that which he deemed his duty to the city. Professor Tomosarchi the great anatomist, who was at the head of the hospital, and curator of the museum, was to have come to the Palazzo Castelmare that morning to show the Marchese an interesting experiment connected with the action of a new anodyne; and Signor Folchi, the pianist, was to have been with him at one, to try over a little piece of the Marchese's own composition. And both these appointments, either of which was far more interesting to the Marchese Lamberto than driving out in the cold to meet the stage goddess, had to be set aside.

Nevertheless, he had deemed it due to his own position, and to the occasion, to grace this little triumphal entry with his presence. If he had left it wholly in the hands of his nephew, and the other young men, it might have been the means of starting the Signora Lalli amiss on her Ravenna career in a manner he particularly wished to avoid. After that little hint on the subject, which the impresario had given him, he was specially desirous that anything like an occasion for scandal should be avoided in all that concerned the sojourn of the Signora Lalli in Ravenna. He, the Marchese Lamberto, the intimate friend of the Cardinal, and the most pre- eminently respectable man in Ravenna, had had a very large— certainly the largest—share in bringing this woman to the city; and he was anxious that the engagement should lead to no unpleasant results of any kind.

It might be very possibly that the little matters at which the impresario had hinted, were not altogether calumnious;—that the lady might be one of those members of her profession who seek other triumphs besides those of her own scenic kingdom, and the story of whose lives in the different cities they visit is not confined to the walls and to the records of the theatre. It might very well be that a little caution and looking after was needed in the matter, It would be as well, therefore, to take the thing in hand at once in a manner that should put the lady on a right course from the beginning;—all which could be excellently well accomplished by at once taking her, as it were, into his own hands; and would, on the other hand, be endangered by throwing her from the first into those of the youngsters who purposed going out to meet her.

So the Marchese sacrificed himself; put off the anatomist and the musician; spent the morning in arranging all the details of the proposed cavalcade with the young men who were to compose it; and at two o'clock got into his open carriage to drive out towards Bagnacavallo. The young Barone Manutoli and Ludovico were in the carriage with him. But it was understood, as has been said, that they were to leave it when they met the heroine of the day, who was to enter Ravenna with the perfectly safe and unattackable Marchese alone in the carriage with her.

"I wonder whether she is as lovely as she is said to be?" said Manutoli, as they drove out beyond the crumbling and ivy-grown brick wall, which had helped to repel the attack of Odoacer the Goth; but which had, some thirteen hundred years ago, failed to keep out the mischief brought into the city by the comedian Empress Theodora, whose beauty had promoted her from the stage to the throne.

Absit omen! And what, indeed, can there be common between Goths and Greeks of the Lower Empire, who lived thirteen hundred years ago, with the good Catholic subjects, and the quiet Catholic city of our Holy Father the Pope, in the nineteenth century!

At all events, it may be taken as very certain that no omen of the sort and no such thoughts were present to the minds or fancies of any of those who were about to form the escort of the modern actress.

"All who have ever seen her, speak in the most rapturous terms of her great beauty," said Ludovico, in reply to his friend's remark.

"Don't be too sure about it, figliuoli mio, or it is likely enough you may be disappointed," said the Marchese Lamberto. "People repeat such things one after the other; there is a fashion in it. I have always found that your stage beauty is as often as not no beauty, at all off it; and then you know stage work and the foot-lights are terribly quick users-up of beauty. And La Lalli is not at the beginning of her career. But what have we to do with all that! che diavolo! She is a great singer; she comes here to delight our ears, not our eyes!"

"But time and work make havoc with the voice as well as with the face and figure, Signor Marchese!" said Manutoli.

"Not to the same degree, Signor Barone, and not quite so rapidly," replied the Marchese, with the manner of one laying down the law on a subject of which he is an acknowledged master. "Of course a voice which has done much work, is not the same thing as a perfectly fresh one? A chi lo dite? though, observe, you very often gain more in knowledge, and in perfection of art, than you lose in freshness of organ. But with proper care, voice, though a perishable thing, is not so rapidly and fatally so, as mere beauty of face; that is sure to go very soon. I have not troubled myself to inquire, as you may imagine, much about the state of La Lalli's good looks. But I have informed myself of the condition of her voice, as it was my duty to do. And I think that in that respect, which is the only one we need care about, the city will find that we have not done badly."

"For my part, I confess a romanzo comes very specially recommended to my ears from a lovely mouth!" said Ludovico; "and I fully expect to find La Lalli quite up to the mark in this respect. I shall be disappointed if she is not."

"From all I have heard, we shall none of us be disappointed!" said Manutoli.

"We shall see in a few minutes!" returned Ludovico, looking at his watch.

"There's something in the road now, I think, as far as I can see!" said Manutoli, who had stood up in the carriage, holding the rail of the driver's seat with one hand. The road stretched long and flat, in a perfectly straight line before them for a great distance. "Yes," continued he, "there is certainly something coming along the road;—a carriage by the quickness with which it nears us: now for it!"

"Tell him to draw up, Ludovico; and he might as well turn round so as to be ready to drive back. We will wait here till she comes; and our friends on horseback may as well remain here too," said the Marchese.

So the little party drew up, and all eyes were turned to the small cloud of dust rapidly approaching them.

"Yes: it is a carriage, and no mistake; and coming along at a good pace too!" said Manutoli.

"It is she, no doubt; she was to sleep at Bagnacavallo," returned Ludovico.

"Signori!" said the Marchese, addressing the four, or five mounted officers, "will you kindly put your horses across the road, so that the lady's driver may see that he is to stop, and that there may be no mistake."

And then an open carriage became clearly visible, and in the next minute, it could be seen that it was occupied by two persons;—a lady and another figure—an old man apparently—muffled in a huge blue travelling-cloak.

Then in another instant the travelling-carriage, finding the road blocked before it, had stopped, and in the next, the Marchese Lamberto, hat in hand, was standing at the door of it, on the lady's side;—the two young men standing immediately behind him, and the horsemen crowded round, craning over the necks of their horses.

Oh! per Bacco! There is no mistake about it; she is startlingly beautiful. Report had not said half enough. And, somehow or other, it appeared as if a travelling-costume was specially becoming to her. At least, it seemed so to the innocent youths who so first saw her. Had there been any women present their minds would have at once gone back from the splendid effect produced to all the details of the artfully combined causes which had gone to the producing of it. But there were no ladies present, save the "Diva" alone.

Such a Diva! She wore a little blue velvet hat, with a white feather in it very coquettishly placed on a superb wealth of hair of the richest auburn tint. She was very delicately fair, with just such an amount of the loveliest carnation on her cheeks as might be produced by the perfection of health and joyousness and youth; or might be, a lady critic would have whispered, by some other equally effectual means. She had large—very large—wide-opened, clear, and limpid light-blue eyes, with that trick of an appealing look in them which always seems to say to every manly heart, "You, alone of all the harsh, cold, indifferent crowd around us, are he to whom I can look for sympathy, comprehension, and fellow-feeling." And now these eyes looked round from one to another of those around her with a look of smiling, innocent surprise and inquiry that demanded an explanation of the unprecedented circumstances with a childish freshness the most engaging.

She wore a bright blue velvet pelisse, trimmed with ermine, which admirably showed to the greatest advantage her magnificently shaped bust, and round slender waist; and bent forward towards the Marchese, as he stood at the carriage-door, with inimitable grace of gesture, and a smile on her sweet lips that would have utterly defeated and put to shame any St. Antony exposed to such temptation.

"Signora," said the Marchese, who looked very handsome, as he stood with his hat in his hand, and bowed with stately courtesy, "Ravenna welcomes you, and places itself at your feet in our persons. Permit me to present to you these gentlemen, who have had the good fortune to be selected among many aspirants to that honour, to assist me in welcoming you to our city: the Barone Adolfo Manutoli; my nephew, the Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare."

"E Lei dunque e il Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare?" said the lady, in the sweetest possible of silvery tones, and with an air of humble wonder at the greatness of the honour done her, mingled with grateful appreciation of it, that was inimitably well done; and held up two exquisitely-gloved slender little hands, as she spoke, half joining them together in thankful astonishment, and half extending them towards him with an almost caressing movement of appeal.

"Si, Signora; I am the man you have named; I am fortunate that my name should have reached your ears; more fortunate still in having had a part in making the arrangements that have brought you here;— and most fortunate of all if I shall be so happy as to make your sojourn among us agreeable."

"Signor Marehese! Lei e troppo garbato,—troppo buono; ma troppo buono, davvero!" said the pretty creature; and the appealing eyes looked into his with the semblance of a tear of emotion in them.

"Will you allow me the pleasure, Signora, of conducting you to the city in my carriage?" said the Marchese, with a graceful wave of his hand towards his handsome equipage. "I have thought it might possibly be agreeable to you to place it and myself at your disposition on this occasion."

"Ma come? It is too great an honour, davvero. But to make my first appearance in your city under such auspices will go far towards assuring me such a success at Ravenna, as it is my most earnest wish to attain."

The Marchese put out his hand to assist her to alight, as he added,- -

"Perhaps you will allow these gentlemen to return in your carriage, Signora? They have no other here. I did not think it necessary to bring a second carriage."

"Come loro commandano!—as their lordships please," said La Lalli with a graceful bow; though the young men were of opinion, that her eyes very plainly said, as she glanced towards them, that she would have preferred that they should have returned in the same carriage together.

She rose, as she spoke, and giving her hand to the Marchese, put one foot on the carriage-step in the act of descending, and then paused to say, as if she had forgotten it till that moment:

"Will you permit me, Signor Marchese, to present my father to you, Signor Quinto Lalli? I never travel without his protection!"

The old man in the corner moved slightly, and made a sort of bow with his head. He had remained quite still and passive in his cloak and his corner all through the rest of the scene, taking it all apparently as something very much in the common order of things. Perhaps the piece that was being played had been played too often in his presence to have any further interest for him.

While thus presenting her father, as she called him, to the Marchese, the beautiful actress had remained for the moments necessary for that purpose, with her matchless figure poised on the one dainty foot, which she had stretched down to the step of the carriage. The attitude certainly showed the svelte perfection of her form to advantage; and from the unavoidable circumstances of the position, it also showed one of the most beautifully formed feet that ever was seen, together with the whole of the exquisite little bottine that clothed it, a beautifully turned ankle, and perhaps as much as two inches of the silk stocking above the boot.

The mere chance that caused the lady to bethink herself of presenting her father just at that moment, was thus quite a piece of good fortune for the young men on foot and on horseback, who were standing around, which no other combination of circumstances could have procured for them.

Then the Marchese handed her with graceful gallantry to his carriage, took the place in the back of it by the side of her; and the little cavalcade began its return to the city. At a small distance from the walls, they found the band stationed, and thus preceded by music, and passing through all the elite of the population in the streets, the Marchese conducted her to the Palazzo Castelmare, and handed her up the grand staircase to the great saloon, where all the theatrical world of Ravenna, and many of the more notable patrons of the theatre, were assembled to receive her.

Signor Ercole Stadione, the little impresario, was there of course, and in high enjoyment of the triumph of the occasion, and of the importance which his share in it reflected on him. He buzzed about the large saloon from one group to another, raising himself on tiptoe as he looked up into the faces of his noble friends and patrons, and rubbing his hands together cheerily in the exuberance of his satisfaction.

"You had the happiness of accompanying the illustrissimo Signor Marchese to receive our honoured guest to-day, Signor Barone!" said he to Manutoli, who was giving an account of his expedition, and of the first appearance of the new "Diva," to a knot of young men grouped around him; "mi rallegro! Mi rallegro! Ravenna could not have had a more worthy representative than yourself, Signor Barone! But is she not divine! What beauty! What a grace!"

"Why, Signor Ercole, one would think you had begotten her yourself. She is a pretty creature certainly. What a smile she has!"

"Eh bene, Signori miei! Are you satisfied? Are you content? Have we done well?" said the little man, buzzing off to another group. "Che vi pare? Is she up to the mark, or is she not?"

"Bravo, Signor Ercole! We are all delighted with her!" said one.

"If she sings as she looks," cried another, "Ravenna has a prima donna such as no other city in Italy has."

"Or in Europe, per Bacco!" added a third.

"What do you think of her, Signor Leandro? Did I say too much?" asked the happy impresario, moving off to a console, against which the poet was leaning in an abstracted attitude, while his eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, managed nevertheless to look out for the manifestation on the Diva's face of that impression which he doubted not his figure and pose must make on her.

"What a bore she must find it having to talk to all those empty- brained fellows that have got round her there, just like buzzing blue-bottle flies round sugar-barrel! I wonder it does not occur to the Marchese that it would be more to the purpose to present to her some of the brighter intelligences of the city. She must think Ravenna is a city of blockheads! And one can see, with half an eye, that is the sort of woman who can appreciate intellect!"

"It will be for you, Signor Conte, to prove to her that our city is not deficient in that respect. Sapristi? Would you desire a better subject? What do you say to an ode, now, on the rising of a new constellation on the shores of the Adriatic? Hein! Or an inpromptu on seeing the divine Lalli enter Ravenna through the same arch under which the Empress Theodora must have passed?"



"I had already thought of that," snapped the poet, sharply.

"Of course you had," said the obsequious little man. "An impromptu, by all means! You could have it ready to present to her at the theatre to-morrow."

"Unless the Marchese thinks fit to present me to the lady presently, I shall decline to write anything at all," rejoined Signor Leandro, thus unjustly determining, in his ill-humour, to punish all Ravenna for the fault of one single individual.

The Diva was, in the meantime, winning golden opinions on all sides. She had bright smiles, and pretty captivating looks, and courteous, prettily-turned phrases for all. But amid all this she contrived unfailingly all the time, by means of some exquisitely subtle nuance of manner, to impress every person present with the unconsciously- conceived feeling that there was something more between her and the Marchese and his nephew than between her and anybody else in the room; that she in some sort belonged to them, and was being presented to the society under their auspices. She remained close by the side of the Marchese. She would look with an appealing and inquiring glance into his face at each fresh introduction that was made to her, as if to ask his sanction and approval. She had some little word from time to time either for his ear, or that of his nephew, spoken in such a manner as to reach those of nobody else; while, gracious to all, she delicately but markedly graduated the scale of her graciousness towards those who were introduced to her, according to the degree of intimacy which seemed to exist between them and the Marchese. The result was that the Marchese, without having been in the least conscious by what means and steps it had been brought about, felt, by the time the gathering was at an end, a sort of sense of proprietorship in the brilliant and lovely artiste;—it was so evidently he who was presenting her to the city! She herself so evidently felt that it would become her to rule her conduct in all respects at Ravenna according to the Marchese's wishes and ideas, and there was so sweet and so subtle a flattery in the way in which she made this felt, that when, after all the crowd had retired, and she was about to take leave of the Marchese to go to the lodging that had been prepared for her, she ventured to take his hand between both hers, while looking up into his face to thank him, in a voice quivering with emotion, for his kindness to her, there passed a something into the system of the Marchese from that contact of the palms that he found it very difficult to rid himself of.



BOOK III

"Sirenum Pocula"



CHAPTER I

"Diva Potens"

Quinto Lalli was the name by which the prima donna had presented the old gentleman who had shared her travelling-carriage to the Marchese Lamberto as her father. And Quinto Lalli was his real name; but he was not really her father. Nor had she any legitimate claim to the name of Lalli. She had never been known by any other, however, during the whole of her theatrical career; and there were very few persons in any of the many cities where the Lalli was famous, who had any idea that the old man who always accompanied her was not her father. Indeed, Bianca had so long been accustomed to call and to consider him as such, that she often well nigh forgot herself that he held no such relationship to her.

The real facts of the case were very simple, and had nothing romantic about them. Old Lalli was a man of great musical gifts and knowledge. He had been a singing-master in his day; an impresario too for a short time; and sometimes a kind of broker, or middle-man between singers in want of an engagement and managers seeking for "available talent;" and a hunter-up of talent not yet available, but which, it might be hoped, would one day become such.

It was in the pursuit of his avocations of this latter sort, that he had one day, about fifteen years before the date of the circumstances narrated in the last chapter, chanced to meet with a little girl, then some twelve years old, on the hopes of whose future success he had resolved to build his own fortunes. It was time that he should find some foundation for them, if they were ever to be built at all, which most of those who knew Signor Quinto Lalli deemed not a little improbable; for he was of the sort of men who never do make fortunes.

He was fifty years old when he had met with the little girl in question, and had done nothing yet towards laying the foundations of any sort of fortune. Unstable, improvident, unthrifty, fond of pleasure, and not fond of work, nothing had succeeded with him. Nevertheless, a cleverer man in his own line, or a shrewder judge of the article he dealt in, than Quinto Lalli did not exist in all Italy. And his judgment did not fail him when he fell in with little Bianca degli Innocenti.

Persons unacquainted with Italian things and ways might suppose that the above modification of the "particle noble" in Bianca's family name was indicative of a very aristocratic origin. Italians, however—and specially Tuscans—would draw a different conclusion from the premises. The family "Degli Innocenti" is very frequently met with in Tuscany; but the bearers of the name do not, for the most part, take great heed of their family ties. The "Innocenti," in a word, is the name of the foundling-hospital in Florence; and those of whose origin nothing is known save that they have been brought up by that charity, are often called after it, and known by no other name. Little Bianca's father, or possibly her grandfather, must have been some such Jem, Jack, or Bob "of the Foundlings," and left no other patronymic to his race.

Quinto Lalli fell in with the child one day in the dirty and miserable little town of Acquapendente, just on the Roman side of the frontier line dividing the Papal territory from Tuscany, as he was travelling from Florence to Rome. He was travelling by the diligence, which always used to remain a good hour or more at Acquapendente, for the transaction of passport and dogana work. There, strolling, for want of something better to do, through the dilapidated streets of the poverty-stricken little town,—which in those days told the traveller most unmistakably how great was the difference between prosperous Tuscany, which he had just left, and the wretched Pope's-land which he was entering—Quinto Lalli heard a child's voice, and instantly stopped and pricked up his ears.

Looking round, he saw a little creature, barely clad, happy amid the surrounding squalor, sitting with its little bare feet and legs dabbling in the sparkling water in the broken marble tank of a once magnificent fountain. There she sate alone in the sunshine, and carolled, with wide-opened throat, like any other nature-made songster.

Quinto Lalli, with startled ear, listened attentively; got round to where he could see the child's face; marked well, with knowing eye, the little brown feet and legs bare to the knee; and then determined to abandon the fare paid for the remainder of his diligence journey to Rome.

The business for the sake of which he made that sacrifice was easily and quickly done. A bargain is not difficult when that which is coveted by one party is deemed a burden and encumbrance by the other. And Quinto Lalli became the fortunate purchaser of the article of which he had so judiciously appreciated the value.

Quinto had his little purchase well and carefully educated—educated her himself in a great measure, as far as her voice was concerned— and took care that every attention was paid, not only to her musical culture, and to the preservation and enhancement of her beauty— which, with great comfort as regarded the ultimate issue of his speculation, he saw every year that passed over her develop more and more—but also to her intellectual cultivation. For Lalli was a clever man enough to know, that if a stupid singer with a fine voice can charm so as to be worth a hundred, an intelligent singer with an equally fine voice, can charm so as to be worth two hundred.

And the old singing-master was good and kind to his pupil: firstly, because he had no unkindness in his nature, and secondly, because it was in every way his interest to conciliate the girl. She had been brought out at eighteen, and had now been nine years on the stage— nine years of success, which ought to have enriched both teacher and pupil.

They had very soon come to understand each other in matters of interest. Lalli had begun by taking all her large earnings. But Bianca very quickly let her protector understand that such an arrangement did not meet her views at all. The ingratitude, when she owed everything to him alone! No, Bianca had no intention to be ungrateful—anzi! she looked upon Lalli as her father, and hoped she always should do so; but she had no intention of being treated like a child. So long as she could earn anything, her adopted father should want for nothing. She asked nothing better than to continue to live with him, and work for both of them.

And, in truth, her grateful kindness and fondness for the old man whom she had so long looked on as a father was Bianca's strongest point in the way of moral excellence. In all their nine years of partnership she had worked for him as much as for herself. But her nine years of success ought to have made both the old man and his adopted daughter comfortably well off. And it had done nothing of the kind.

They had laid by nothing. Old Quinto had all his life been recklessly extravagant and thriftless; and his mode of education had not made Bianca less so. If he was fond of dissipation and pleasure, she was not less fond of them on her side. Careful as her education had been, it was hardly to be expected that it should have been eminently successful in forming a high standard of moral character. The demands made by society upon its members in general in the clime and time in question were not of a very exacting nature; and the expectations of society in this respect from a person in Bianca's position were more moderate still. Nor were the precepts, counsels, example, or wisdom of her protector at all calculated to guide the beautiful singer scatheless through the dangers and difficulties incidental to her position.

In short, for nine years Bianca had worked hard—had earned a great deal of money, and had spent it all (except what Lalli had spent for her) in dissipation, the sharers in which had been chosen by the beautiful actress—as kissing goes—by favour, and not with any view to their ability to pay the cost.

And now La Lalli had reached her twenty-seventh year; and was very nearly as poor as when she began her career. And certain small warnings, unimportant as yet, and wholly unsuspected, save by herself and old Quinto, had begun to suggest to her the expediency of thinking a little for the future. She and Quinto Lalli had had a very serious conversation on the subject just before the commencement of that season at Milan, which, as has been hinted, had ended somewhat disagreeably for the charming singer.

The real truth of the matter was that the difficulty in question had arisen not from any tendency in the lady to behave in the Lombard capital with more reprehensible levity than, it must unfortunately be admitted, she had been very well known to have behaved in other places and on other occasions; but from a change in her manners in a diametrically opposite direction. It was a change of tactics, which the strictest moralist must have admitted to involve an improvement in moral conduct, that got the hardly treated Diva into trouble.

The Austrian Government, as we all know, is, or was, a paternal government-a very paternal government. And the governor who ruled in the Lombard capital was quite as much intent on playing the "governor," in the modern young gentleman's sense of the word, as good old paternal Franz himself in his own Vienna. But this paternal government was not of the sort which ignores the well-authenticated fact that "young men will be young men." On the contrary, it proceeded always, especially as regarded its more distinguished sons, on the largest recognition of this truth. Wild-oats must be sown; the "governor" knew it, and the law allowed it. But they should be so sown as to involve as little prejudicial an after-crop, as may be—as little prejudicial especially to those distinguished sons who cannot be expected to refrain from such natural sowing.

And enchanting Divas may assist in such sowing, and be tolerated in so doing by a not too rigidly exacting paternal government—may be held in so assisting not to step beyond the sphere of social functions assigned to them by the natural order of things in a manner too offensive to the mild morality of a paternal government, as long as such joint wild-oat cultivation shall in nowise threaten to interfere with the future tillage of less wild and more profitable crops by those distinguished young scions of noble races, to whose youthful aberrations a paternal government is thus wisely indulgent.

So long, and no longer. Mark it well, enchanting Divas. Enchant if you will; 'tis your function. But do not think to enchain? Enmesh a young Marchese in the tangles of Neaera's hair. A paternal governor puts his fingers before his eyes; and lets a smile be seen on his lips beneath them. But do not seek to bind him by less easily broken ties. A vigilant and moral governor frowns on the instant; and a paternal government well knows how to protect its distinguished sons by very summary and effectual process.

But when for a poor Diva there comes also the time when that pleasant wild-oat sowing seems no longer a promising pursuit, what does the paternal wisdom decree as to her future? Why, she must reap as she has sown—or helped to sow. See ye to it, Divas. Such providence is beyond our function.

And thus it had come to pass that the trouble had arisen which had resulted in inducing the Diva Bianca to turn her back on ungrateful Milan, and her face towards welcoming Ravenna. In that conference between Bianca and her old friend and counsellor, which has been mentioned, it had been fully brought home to the Diva's conviction that for her the pleasant time of wild-oat sowing had come to an end. "Would that the year were always May." But old Quinto Lalli knew that it wasn't. And it had been concluded between him and his adopted daughter that it was high time for Bianca to take life au serieux;—to understand thoroughly that noctes coenaeque deum, with champagne suppers and love among the roses, must be, if not necessarily abandoned, yet steadily contemplated as a means and not an end.

What if—

Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, Shakes his light wings, and in a moment flies?

The warning of the verse teaches that the skittish god must not be scared by a premature exhibition of the noose hid beneath the sieve of corn. Champagne suppers and love among the roses—yes. But there should be, also, cunningly hidden, the noose among the roses.

And to this wisdom the Diva her well-trained mind did seriously incline, during that last Milan campaign. Nor did her moral aim seem to be without good promise of success. The sleek young colts with their shiny coats, glossy, with the rich pastures of the Lombard plains, pranced up and nibbled, all unconscious of the hidden noose. One fine young unsuspecting animal, the noblest of the herd, came so close to the noose that Bianca thought her work was done, and was on the point of casting it over his lordly head—and he all but enchanted into such docility as to submit to it, even seeing it.

When lo! with sudden swoop of hand, sharp vibrating police decrees, an unsleeping paternal government darts down the fabric of our hopes, sends off the nearly captured prey, loud neighing and with heels kicked high in air, but safe, to his ancestral Lombard pastures, and whirls away the too dangerous enchantress into outer space.

Sorrowfully the baffled fair goes forth (a graceful picture somewhere seen of paradise-banished Peri with pretty stooping head, recalls itself to my mind as I write the words); sorrowfully but not despairing,—and wiser than before.

And yet before she goes seeking fresh fields and pastures new, and meditating new emprise, wealthy Milan shall itself equip her for the next campaign. For much of such expedient outfit Milan can supply, which, in remote Ravenna, might in vain be sought. There, beneath the shadow of those marble walls, where once the sainted Borromeo preached, the cunningest Parisian artists may be found—so rich in corn and wine and silk are Lombard plains-modists and mercers, corset-makers, lacemen, skilled so to clothe the limbs of beauty, that every fold shall but display the perfect handiwork of nature, yet add to it the further grace of art. Makers of tiny slippers and such dainty bootlets as show forth and enhance the separate beauty of each inch of outline of rounded ankle, arched instep, and slender length of foot, shall lend their help. And if envious Time have something done to blur the bloom upon the cheek, or blot the clear transparent purity of skin,—sunt certa piacula,—there are not wanting means for helping a mortal Diva to some of the prerogatives of immortality in these respects.

And thus equipped, everything is ready, Quinto mio; we turn our backs on haughty Milan, and nova regna petentes cras ingens iterabimus aequor, that is to say, the wide plains of Lombardy.

So Bianca and her faithful Quinto journeyed forth on that interminably long flat monotonous Emilian road, with no accompanying sound of music on their departure, but with the much-improved prospects, which have been described, on their arrival.



CHAPTER II

An Adopted Father and an Adopted Daughter

When Bianca, on the evening of her arrival at Ravenna, rejoined Quinto Lalli at the handsome and convenient lodging which had been provided her, after having passed an hour or two, as has been related, in being presented to the notabilities of the city, and receiving a great deal of homage at the Palazzo Castelmare, she had already learned many useful things.

Imprimis, she had learned that the Marchese Lamberto was a bachelor; that he was—though what young girls call an old man—still almost in the prime of life, for a man so healthy and well preserved; that he was a remarkably handsome and dignified gentleman; that he evidently occupied the very foremost place in the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens; that he was rich; and that he appeared from all those little signs and tokens of manner, which such a woman as La Diva Bianca can interpret so readily, the last man in the world likely to fall in love with such a travelling Diva as herself. She had learned, further, that the Marchese Ludovico was his heir; that the said Ludovico might be judged, by all those same signs and tokens, to be very much such a man as might be likely to fall over head and ears in love with a beautiful woman, who should make it her business to cause him to do so; and yet further, that this Marchese Ludovico was just the sort of man, whom, if she might permit herself to join pleasure with business, she would very well like so to operate on. She had heard a poem read to her by the Conte Leandro, and had decided that, if he were the wealthiest man in all Ravenna, no sense of her duty to herself could prevail to make her do anything but run away from him at the first warning of his approach. Nevertheless, from him, even, she had learned something. She had become acquainted with the fact, whispered in his own exquisitely felicitous manner, and with the tact and judicious appreciation of opportunity peculiar to him, that Ludovico di Castelmare was, to the great sorrow of his friends and family, enslaved by a certain Venetian artist, then resident in Ravenna,—a girl really of no attractions whatever.

Thus much of the carte du pays of that new country, in which her own campaign was to be made, and of which it so much imported her to have the social map, she had learned, when she found Quinto Lalli waiting for her to take possession of their new home.

"Well, bambina mia,—my baby," for so the old man often called her, "what sort of folk have we come among? How do you like the appearance of the country?"

"Eh, papa mio, che volete? I have seen only a bit of it. It is rather early to judge yet," said Bianca.

"Not too early for your quickness, bambina mia. Besides, you may be sure you have seen most of what you are likely to see, and what it most concerns you to see. The Cardinal Legate was not likely to come out to meet you, I suppose; nor does it much matter to you to see his Eminence."

"Well, what I have seen, I like. As for the theatre, that Marchese Lamberto, whom you saw, knows what singing is as well as you do. I shall please him on the stage; and, if so, as I see very well, I shall please all the rest of Ravenna. But—"

"But what? There is always a 'but.' What is it this time?" said the old man.

"As if you did not know as well as I!" said Bianca, with a little toss. "Is what I can do on the theatre of Ravenna the thing that is most in my thoughts?"

"'Twas you who mentioned it first," said Quinto. "I spoke of it merely with reference to that man, the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. He is one of the first, if not the very first, man in the city; and everybody is cap in hand before him. Evidently a rich man."

"And he is a musician, you say?" rejoined Quinto.

"Fanatico! But what matters that; except, indeed, as a stepping- stone? What has music done for me? The Marchese Lamberto is a bachelor, Quinto."

"Ha! what, the old man?" said Quinto, looking sharply at her.

"Yes, the old man, as you call him. Not so old but he might be your son, friend Quinto. But there is the young man, the Marchese Ludovico, whom you also saw, when they met us on the road. He is the nephew and heir to the other—a bachelor too—and as pretty a fellow as one would wish to see into the bargain; a charming fellow."

"So was the Duca di Lodi at Milan," said the old man, quietly; "a very charming fellow—charming and charmed into the bargain. But—"

"Yes! I don't need to ask the meaning of your 'but.' We know all about that; but what is the good of going back upon it?" said Bianca, throwing herself at full length upon a sofa, and tossing her hat on to the ground, with some little display of ill-temper, as she spoke.

"Only for the sake of the light past mistakes may throw on future hopes," replied Quinto, with philosophic calmness.

"Bah-mistakes—what mistake? There was no mistake, but for that infamous old wretch of a governor," said Bianca, with an expression which the individual referred to would hardly have recognized as beautiful, if he could have seen it.

"Yes! I know. May the devil give him his due! But, bambina mia, there are wretches of governors here too, it is to be feared, no less infamous."

"What do you mean? What did we come here then for?" cried Bianca, rearing herself on her elbow on the sofa, and looking at her old friend with wide-opened eyes of angry surprise.

"In the first place, cara mia, because it was necessary to go somewhere; and, in the second place, because I should be very much at a loss to name any place where the governors are not infamous wretches, every whit as bad as at Milan. 'Tis the way of them, my poor child. But you see, Bianca dear, to return to what we were saying, there was a little mistake at Milan. The Duca di Lodi did not go off into the country, and leave you plantee la, to please himself."

"Who ever thought he did? No, poor fellow, he was right enough. But what was the mistake, I want to know?"

"You could bring no influence to bear, except upon himself, you know."

"Of course not. How should I? E poi?"

"And he could not do as he pleased," said Quinto, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "That was the mistake, cara mia, to endeavour to bring about an object, by influencing some one who had no power to act for themselves in the matter."

"A very pleasant Job's comforter you are to-night, Quinto. I don't know what you are driving at?" said Bianca, staring at him.

"Only this, my precious child. I was set thinking of the mistake at Milan by what you said of these two men, the uncle and nephew. Has it not come into your clever head, mia bella, that we might find here the means of avoiding a repetition of that error?"

"Ah—h! Now I see what you are at. The uncle—hum—m—m," said Bianca, meditatively; and then shaking her head with closely shut lips.

"And why not the uncle, bambina mia? I am sure the few words you have said about him are sufficient to point out that an alliance with the Marchese di Castelmare would be an advantageous one for any lady in the land," said old Quinto, with a demure air, that concealed under it just the least flavour in the world of quiet irony.

"I won't deny, papa mio, that, being humble as becomes my station," replied Bianca, in the same tone, "I should be perfectly contented with the style and title of Marchesa di Castelmare. But what reason have we for thinking that there would be any less difficulty in becoming such than in becoming Duchessa di Lodi? That, between ourselves, is the question."

"And what difficulty lay in the way of becoming Duchessa di Lodi? Certainly none that arose from the Signor Duca. Governors and fathers, and uncles and aunts, and police commissaries, and the devil knows what, all interfered to keep two young hearts asunder, and spoil the game. And why did they interfere?—the devil have them all in his keeping! Because all the world agrees to believe that such springalds as the Duca di Lodi can't take care of themselves. Because it is considered that the titles and acres of such, if not their persons, should be protected against—against the impulses of their warm hearts, shall we say? Now, do you think that the world would consider any such protection necessary in the case of the Marchese Lamberto? Would any governors, or fathers, or uncles, or aunts, or commissaries, interfere to prevent him from doing as he pleased in such a matter?"

"No, I suppose not!" replied Bianca, thoughtfully; "but if no father or uncle did, a nephew might. It is always the way; people get out of the leading-strings put on them by their elders, only to be entangled in others wound round them by their sons and daughters and nephews and nieces! The poor old man is beguiled. We must prevent him from making such a fool of himself! And the interference is all the worse. and the more fatal, because the poor old man would not only make a fool of himself, but beggars of his protectors."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed old Quinto Lalli with a quiet, almost noiseless laugh; "it is very well and shrewdly said, bambina mia. But between the two times of interference, my Bianca, there is a happy medium; an intervening space, a high table-land, we may say, after the dominion of fathers and uncles has been escaped from, and before that of sons and nephews begins—a short time, during which a man may and can please himself. Now, it seems to me, that your Marchese—pardon me for the anticipation, it is a mere figure of speech, your Marchese di Castelmare, I say, seems to me to be just in that happy position!"

"I don't know that, I have not seen enough to be sure about that yet. That young fellow, the Marchese Ludovico, does not look to me a likely sort of man to stand by quietly and see himself cut out of houses and lands! And besides,—it strikes me—"

"Speak out your thought, bambina mia; I am sure it is one worth hearing. And between us, you know—"

"Well, between ourselves then," continued Bianca; while a smile, half of mockery and half of pleasure, writhed her lips into changing outlines, each more bewitchingly pretty than the other, and her eyes were turned away from Quinto to a contemplation of the slender dainty foot peeping out from beneath her dress, as she lay on the sofa; "between ourselves, papa mio, from one or two small observations, which I chanced to make to-day, it strikes me that the Marchese Ludovico might possibly feel other additional objections to the establishment of any such relations, as you are contemplating between me and his uncle, besides the likelihood that they might be the means of cutting him out of his heirship."

"Ha, I see, I see; nothing more likely! Per Dio, bambina mia, you lose no time! Brava la Bianca! And perhaps I may conclude, from one or two small observations that I have been able to make myself, you would prefer to win on the nephew! Eh, cara mia" said the old man, looking at her with a sly smile.

"Pshaw!" cried Bianca, with a toss of her auburn ringlets, and a shrug of her beautiful shoulders; "I must do my duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me,—as the nuns at St. Agata taught me. But between uncles and nephews, I suppose any girl would say, nephews for choice!"

"But you see, my child, the devil of it is that it would be the Milan story over again. You would have all the family to fight against. A Cardinal Legate can be quite as despotic, and disagreeable, and tyrannical as an Austrian governor. You may be very sure that these people have some marriage in view for this young Marchese, the hope of the family! We know that the Marchese Lamberto is hand and glove with the Cardinal. And there would be an exit from Ravenna after the same fashion as our last!"

"I know for certain already, that there is a marriage arranged between the young Marchese and no less a personage than the niece of the Cardinal Legate himself," said Bianca.

"Well then; that is not very promising ground to build on, is it, bambina mia!" replied Quinto.

"It may be, that as far as the man himself is concerned, the match that has been made for him would be rather the reverse of a difficulty in the way," rejoined Bianca.

"But the difficulty will not come from the man himself, cara mia! It would be doing you wrong to suppose that to be at all likely. I don't suppose it; but—do you imagine that the Cardinal Legate will permit you to snatch his niece's proposed husband from out of her mouth! It would be a worse job than the other," said Quinto, shaking his head emphatically.

"So that you are all for the uncle, papa mio?" rejoined Bianca; yawning, as if she were tired of discussing the subject.

"Well, I confess it seems to my poor judgment the better scheme, and indeed a very promising scheme. Depend upon it, my child, an old man, who is his own master, is the better and safer game," replied Quinto.

"Very well! Have at the old man then, as you call him; though, as I have told you, Quinto, he is not an old man—not over forty-five I should say; at all events the right side of fifty, I'd wager anything! But I tell you fairly, that a less promising subject I never saw. A man, who has lived till that age a bachelor, though the head of his family,—and a bachelor of the out-and-out moral and respectable sort, mind you,—the great friend of the Cardinal; trustee to nunneries, and all that sort of thing!—a man who looks at you and speaks to you as if he was a master of ceremonies presenting a Duchess to a Queen,—a man, I should say, who had never cared for a woman in his life, and was very unlikely to begin to do so now," said Bianca, yawning again as she finished speaking.

"Bambina mia," replied Quinto, "you are a very clever child, and you know a great many things. But you have not yet sufficiently studied the elderly gentleman department of human nature. If the Marchese Lamberto is as you describe him, it may be, it is true, that he is one of those men for whom female beauty has no charm, and on whom any kind of attack would be thrown away and mere lost labour. But it is far more likely that the exact reverse may be found to be the case! A thousand circumstances of his social position, or even of his temper and turn of mind, may have kept him a bachelor,—may have kept him out of the way of women altogether. He may be found cautious, haughty, backward to woo, requiring to be wooed, in love with the respectabilities of his social standing; but depend upon it, bambina mia, if you can once awaken the dormant passion of such a man, you may produce effects wholly irresistible,—you may do anything with him! His love would be like a frozen torrent when the thaw comes! It would dash aside every opposition that could be offered it. The calculated and calculating tentatives, and coquettings and nibblings of your practised lovers, who have been in love a dozen times, would be as a trickling rill to an ocean wave, compared to what might be expected from the passion of a heart first strongly moved at the time of life the Marchese has reached. Fascinate such a man as that, and in such a position, bambina mia, and all the governors, and all the Cardinals that ever mumbled a mass, won't avail to prevent him from being your own!"

"Well, I suppose you are right, Quinto. And I suppose that that is what it must be!—But—well! it is time to be going to bed, I suppose; I am tired and sleepy!" said Bianca, rousing herself after a pause from a reverie into which she seemed to have fallen, and yawning as she got up from the sofa.



CHAPTER III

"Armed at All Points"

The quartiere which La Lalli found prepared at Ravenna for her and her travelling companion was a very eligible one. It consisted of a very nicely-furnished sitting-room, with a bed-room opening off on one side for herself, and another similarly situated on the other side for her father. There was also, behind, one little closet for a servant to sleep in, and another, still smaller, intended to serve as a kitchen.

On the morning following the conversation related in the last chapter Bianca, hearing Quinto coming out of his bed-room into the sitting-room about nine o'clock, called out to him from her bed:

"Oh, papa! I forgot to tell you last night that the Marchese and Signor Stadione are to be here at one o'clock to-day to hear me, and settle about the night of the 6th, you know."

"All right, bambina mia! I will be back in time. I'm going to the cafe to get some breakfast," called out Quinto through the door.

"Yes. But, papa, be here at one o'clock, and do not come back before that. E inteso? And send me a cup of chocolate from the cafe."

"Inteso! I'll be here at one, and not before," said the old man through the door, with special emphasis on the last words.

Then Bianca called her maid, told her to bring the chocolate to her as soon as it came from the cafe, and then to come and dress her at ten. Whether the intervening time was spent in sleep or meditation may be doubted; but, at all events, when the hour for action came Bianca was ready for it.

By means of the skilled and practised assistance of Gigia Daddi, the maid who had been with her ever since the first beginning of her stage career, the Diva had completed her toilette by half-past eleven. But she had had, to a certain degree, a double toilette to perform. All the component parts of a rich and very becoming morning-costume had been selected and assorted with due care, and minute attention to the effect each portion of it was calculated to produce in combination with the rest; and then they had been not put on, but laid out in order on the bed. The more immediate purpose of the Diva was to array herself differently—differently, but by no means with a less careful and well-considered attention to the result which was intended to be produced.

The magnificent hair was brushed till it gleamed like burnished gold as the sun-rays played upon it. But when ready to be coiled in the artistic masses, which Gigia knew well how to arrange, variously, according to the style and nature of the effect designed to be produced, it was left uncoiled, streaming in great ripples over back and shoulders in its profuse abundance. An exquisite little pair of boots, of black satin, clasping ankle and instep like a glove, were chosen to match the black satin dress laid out on the bed: but, like the dress, were not put on. The place of the black satin dress was supplied by a wrapper of very fine white muslin, edged with delicate lace, so shaped with consummate skill that, though the snowy folds seemed to lie loosely within the girdle that confined them at the waist, no part of the effect of the round elastic slimness of the waist was lost; open at the neck, from a point about a span beneath the collar-bone, it allowed the whole of the noble white column of the grandly-formed throat to be visible from its base above the bosom to the opening out of the exquisite lines about the nape of the neck into the tapering swelling of the classically-shaped head. The exact arrangement of the shape of this opening of the dress, from the throat down to about a hand's-breadth above the girdle, was very carefully attended to; the lace-edged folds of the muslin being three or four times drawn a little more forward so as to conceal, or a little back so as to show, a more liberal glimpse of the swelling bosom on either side, by the doubting Diva, as she stood before the glass.

"E troppo, cosi." she said to her attendant at last. "Is that too much so?"

Gigia looked critically before she answered, "To receive, yes,—a little, perhaps. But to be caught unawares, no; and then with a handkerchief, you know—"

"Oh, yes! One knows the exercise," said Bianca, with a laugh; "blush and call attention to it by covering it with one's handkerchief, which falls down as often as one chooses to repeat the manoeuvre. A chi lo dite?"

"Style?" said Gigia.

"Sentimental,—eyes soft and dreamy; therefore the very faintest blush of rouge. Yes; not a shade more."

"You won't put your bottines on?"

"No; there'll be time afterwards. Give me a pair of bronze kid slippers. After all, there is nothing that shows a foot so well: and look here, Gigia, draw this stocking a little better; I'd almost as soon have a wrinkle in my face as in the silk on my instep. That's better! The narrow black velvet with the jet cross for my neck, nothing else. Now, you understand? Anybody who comes after one o'clock may be admitted; before that you will let in no soul save the Marchese Lamberto, in case he should come. I don't at all know that he will. And, Gigia," continued her mistress, as she passed into the sitting-room, "draw this sofa over to the other side of the fireplace, so as to face the window; ten years hence, when you have to place a sofa for me, you may put it just contrariwise—so, with the head at the side of the fireplace, and push the table a little further back so as to leave room for the easy-chair there to stand near the foot of the sofa facing the fire. That will do. Now, be sure of your man before you let him in. The Marchese Lamberto, mind, an elderly gentleman—not the Marchese Ludovico, who is a young man. If he or anybody else should come before one o'clock tell them that I can see nobody till that time. Now, don't bring me the wrong man; and, Gigia, if he comes, don't announce him, you know. Just open the door quietly, and let him walk into the room without disturbing me— you understand?"

"A chi lo dite, Signora mia! Lasciate fare a me! Is it the first time?" said Gigia.

"If only one could hope that it would be the last," returned her mistress with a half laugh, half sigh.

By the time all these arrangements were made it was nearly twelve o'clock; and Bianca, dismissing her maid, placed herself, not without some care in the arrangement of her delicate draperies, on the sofa.

The judicious Gigia had said that the extent of snowy bosom exposed was not too liberal, due consideration being had to the circumstance that the Diva was to be caught by an unexpected surprise in an undress. So, as Bianca meant to be very much surprised, she carefully, and with dainty fingers, drew back the muslin on either side just a thought, so as to permit to an exploring eye merely such a suggestive peep of the swelling curves on either side as might furnish an estimate of the outline of the veiled heights beyond. She smiled, half with pleased consciousness and half with self-mockery, as she did so: then carefully arranged her drapery so as to allow two slim ankles to be visible just at the point where they crossed each other in a position which exhibited the curved instep of one slender foot in a full front view, and the side of the other negligently thrown across it. The pose was artistically perfect. Lastly, with one or two dexterous touches and shakes, she so arranged her wealth of hair as to combine an appearance of the most perfect negligee with a thoroughly artistic disposition of it, which, while it displayed to the best advantage the tresses themselves, served also to heighten the effect of the contours of neck and bust, which they partly showed and partly concealed.

And then the Diva waited patiently.

She had, as she had said to Gigia, no certain knowledge that he would come, nor even any very clear reason to believe that he would do so—that he would come, that is to say, earlier than one o'clock, at which hour it had been arranged that he should meet Stadione there. Nevertheless, Bianca had a strong persuasion that he would come earlier. Despite what she had said to Quinto Lalli of the circumstances and signs which seemed to indicate that the Marchese was not a man likely to be exposed to danger from such attacks as the Diva meditated making on him,—despite the fact that she had said to herself also all that she had said to her old friend, there had been something about the Marchese's manner—something in that last pressure of palm to palm that had set Bianca speculating as to the meaning of it. It was not a mere manifestation of admiration; the Diva was used enough to that in all its forms, and could read every tone of its language. It was more like wonder and curiosity,— at all events, it was not indifference. She had seen with half an eye, and without the slightest appearance of seeing it, that the Marchese could not keep his eyes away from her. During the drive to the city, and afterwards at the Palazzo Castelmare, while she was making the acquaintance of the principal people of the city, it had been the same thing. And nothing could be further than was the Marchese's manner, from the bold, unabashed staring, which such beautiful Divas as Bianca have often to endure. He evidently was devouring her with his eyes on the sly. Evidently he did not wish to be observed looking at her as he did look. Whenever her own eyes caught him in the fact, his were on the instant withdrawn: to return, as Bianca well marked, on the next instant.

Then, after those first words, which he had addressed to her at their meeting in the road, she had noted that he did not speak to her, as she sat by his side in the carriage, with the simple ease and freedom of indifference. There was almost something approaching to a manifestation of emotion in his manner of addressing her. It could not be that this elderly gentleman,—this very mature Marchese, had fallen in love with her already. Such an idea would have been too absurd! Yet his whole bearing was odd and ill at ease.

It had seemed to himself as if some subtle material influence affected him, as he sat by her side,—as if a magnetic emanation came forth from her that mounted to his brain, and disordered his pulses, and the flow of his blood. He had sat by the side of women as beautiful before now, and never been conscious of being affected in any similar manner. What it was that produced such an effect upon his nervous system,—what was the matter with him, he could not for the life of him imagine. It was unpleasant; he did not like it at all. And yet some irresistible stimulus and curiosity drove him to prolong rather than to avoid the sorcery.