"Bah! what a bore? My uncle is always making himself the maestro di casa, the manager, the protector, the servant of all the world. Tell the Marchese I'll go directly," he said to the servant; then added to his companion, "Come, Leandro, don't desert me! Let's go together and see what these Venetian women want."

"I ought to go to the Contessa Giulia at two. She'll be waiting for me, and will be furious if I disappoint her. Never mind, what must be, must be! I Tre Re! Ugh, what a distance; why, it is at the other end of the town?"

"Never mind, come along; it will do you good to walk half a mile for once and away," returned Ludovico, who knew perfectly well how much to believe about the Contessa Giulia's despair at his friend's non-appearance.

Thus the two young men went together to the locanda de' Tre Re to execute the commission entrusted to his nephew by the Marchese Lamberto.

"Yes," said a slatternly girl, who came forth from some back region at the call of the two young men, and who stared at them with an offensive mixture of surprise and understanding interest, when they inquired for the ladies recently arrived from Venice. "Yes, they were upstairs, on the right hand, in No. 13." So they climbed the stairs, knocked at No.

13, were told to pa.s.sare by the voice of Signora Orsola, and in the next instant were in the room with the two strangers.

The first glance at the occupants of the chamber produced a shock of surprise, which manifested itself in so sudden a change of manner and bearing in the two young men, that it would have been ludicrous to any looker-on. The two hats came down from the two heads with a spring-like suddenness and quickness; and both the young men bowed lowly.

"Ladies," said Ludovico, addressing himself mainly to the elder, but turning also towards the younger as he spoke, while the Conte Leandro stared unmitigatedly at Paolina; "we come to you, sent by my uncle the Marchese di Castelmare, and charged by him to a.s.sist you in finding a convenient quartiere for your residence in Ravenna. Permit me to say on my own behalf," he added, turning more entirely towards Paolina, "that I hope it may not be a short one!"

"If the Signorina would make her stay among us as long as we would wish it, she would never leave Ravenna any more," said the Conte Leandro, with a glance from his sharp little eyes, and a bow of his fat person, that were meant to be quite killing.

"It is this young lady, I conclude, who has undertaken to copy some of our mosaics for the Englishman, who writes to my uncle, then?" said Ludovico with a good-humoured and bright smile.

"That is it, Signor--though she is but such a slip of a thing to look at. I was afraid the Signor Marchese had taken it into his head that I was Paolina Foscarelli. Lord love you! I could not make, nor yet copy a picture, if it were to save my life!"

"My uncle will be equally happy to have it in his power to oblige either lady," rejoined Ludovico.

"I am sure the Marchese is too good," said Signora Steno; "we remain here till the Signorina Foscarelli has finished the job she has undertaken, and no longer, nor no shorter. And some place we must find to live in the while. And if your lordship could tell us where we would be likely to find a couple of bedrooms, a bit of a sitting-room, and the use of a kitchen, it would be very kind."

"There will be no difficulty about that, I think, Signora," said the Marchese Ludovico; "I will go at once and inquire! I think I know where what we want may be had. If you will permit me, I will return to you here in less than half an hour."

"Troppo garbato, Signor Marchese!" said Orsola.

"If the Signorina will permit me," said Leandro, "I think I know of just such a little quartierino as would suit her, snug, quiet, and parfettamente libero."

To this offer, Paolina felt herself constrained to reply by a silent little bow. His former speech had received no reply whatsoever.

"I think I had better do what my uncle has told me to do, Leandro," said the Marchese Ludovico, drily.

And Paolina felt sufficiently grateful to him for the amount of snubbing contained in his accent to say the first words she had spoken since they entered the room. "We shall be exceedingly obliged to you, Signore, if you will do so. Any quartiere which the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare could recommend to us," she added, with a significant emphasis on the words, "would be sure to suit us."

"But perhaps the Marchese Lamberto may not know half as much about such matters as I do, bella Signorina. People forget so many things by the time they come to the age of the Marchese," said the Conte Leandro, with a leering smile, which was meant to establish a confidential understanding between him and Paolina. But the young girl's only answer was to turn in her chair a little more away from him towards the window.

"I think we had better leave the ladies, and see if we can find for them what they require. I should prefer doing myself what my uncle has entrusted to me," said Ludovico, with a frown on his brow.

"Very good--do so. You say you shall be back here in half an hour; if these ladies will permit me I will remain with them till you come back, and then we can all go and look at the quartiere you have found together," said the Conte Leandro.

Poor Paolina, though perfectly determined not to acquiesce in this arrangement, was quite at a loss what to say or do to prevent it from being carried out.

"But you forget your engagement to the Contessa Giulia," said Ludovico; "surely you had better make haste to keep it."

He had no belief whatever in any such engagement, and had a very faint hope that any care for consistency would avail to induce his friend the Conte Leandro to affect the necessity of keeping it. But he also was perfectly determined not to leave him in the room with the strangers, though almost as much at a loss as Paolina how to prevent it.

"Oh, hang the Contessa Giulia! In any case, it is too late to go to her now, and I am sure I shall like much better to stay here," said Leandro.

"Very likely. But you forget that it may not be equally agreeable to these ladies that you should remain here, and they just arrived from a journey too," said the Marchese Ludovico, who was inwardly cursing his folly in having brought his friend with him on this errand, which he unquestionably would not have done had he had the remotest idea what manner of ladies they were that his uncle had deputed him to attend on.

"By-the-by, Leandro," he said, suddenly, as he was moving towards the door, "you must come with me--after all; for now I remember that the rooms I had in my mind were let a short time since, and the best thing we can do will be to go and look at those you spoke of."

"Oh! I will tell you where they are--" said Leandro.

"No, no! that won't do at all; come--come along. I won't go there without you. Come!" said the Marchese.

And this was said in a manner that had the effect of making Leandro take leave of the ladies, with many hopes that they might meet again ere long.

Very soon after the two young men were in the street together, Ludovico protested that he must call at the Circolo before attending to the business they were on; and when he got there he pretended to be obliged to run home for a minute to the Palazzo Castelmare, which was hard by, saying that he would return and rejoin the Conte Leandro in less than five minutes. And very heartily did that deceived gentleman abuse his friend, when he had waited an hour, and found that he did not return at all. Then, poor gentleman! he knew that he had been bamboozled,--cruelly treated, as he said himself. And he perfectly well understood his dear friend's object, too!

"Such an intolerable, abominable c.o.xcomb as that Ludovico is! As if he fancied that n.o.body was to have a chance of speaking to that pretty girl but himself. As if he thought that he had the ghost of a chance with a woman, if I thought it worth while to cut him out!" grumbled the gallant, gay Leandro to himself.

The Marchese Ludovico, meanwhile, the instant he had succeeded in freeing himself from his companion, darted off in search of an apartment, which he thought would just suit his fair clients; hurried back to them, at the inn; and had them installed in their new quarters by that evening.

"I am sure I do not know how to thank you enough for all your kindness, Signor Marchese. I do not know what we should have done without it,"

said the Signora Orsola.

"For all your kindness!" repeated Paolina, with a look and an emphasis which, while it expressed her grat.i.tude, left him at no loss to understand what part of all he had done for them had chiefly seemed to the pretty Paolina to merit her special thanks.

And these were the facts and the circ.u.mstances that had brought about a state of matters which left the Marchese Lamberto and the gossips of the Circolo in no doubt where the young Marchese Ludovico had gone to pa.s.s his evening, when his uncle sent for him to the club for the purpose which the reader wots of, and failed to find him there.

CHAPTER VI

The Beginning of Trouble

Nearly eight months had elapsed between that day when the Signora Orsola and the Signorina Paolina were installed in their new lodging and the day when the Marchese Ludovico was sitting in the more than modest little room over a miserable morsel of fire, with the two Venetians, when his uncle sent for him to give him the hint about any inconvenient gossip that might be whispered concerning the Signora Bianca Lalli, in accordance with the suggestion of the impresario.

The Marchese Lamberto had made the personal acquaintance of the young artist, who had been recommended to his protection very shortly after the day on which he had deputed his nephew to find a lodging for her; and he had instantly become aware that he had made a mistake in so doing;--that he would certainly have deemed it better to take that care upon himself rather than have confided it to the young Marchese, if he had had the least idea what sort of person the Venetian artist was.

Nevertheless, he had been very strongly impressed with the propriety of Paolina's manner and bearing, and after one or two more interviews, with the thorough modesty of her mind, and purity and dignity of her character. And the Marchese was a man well competent to form a sound judgment of such matters.

He had no reason to think that the young man, his nephew, was as prudent, as steady, as little liable to the influence of female beauty, as cold, if you will, as he himself had been at the same age. On the contrary, the character, which the Marchese Ludovico had made for himself in Ravenna, was a rather diametrically opposite one. But he was strongly of opinion that in any enterprise of an illegitimate nature which his nephew might attempt with the young artist, he would have his trouble only for his pains. And, of course, any enterprise of any other nature was wholly out of the question.

Still, as the months went on he would have been far better contented that his nephew should have been less often at the home of the two Venetians. There were circ.u.mstances which made such visits especially inexpedient at the present time. He knew that the young man was there much oftener than he judged to be in any way desirable; and the young man was there much oftener than his uncle knew. The Marchese Lamberto was still very much persuaded that Paolina had not been led by his nephew into any false step of a seriously blamable nature. But this was by no means any reason with the Marchese for approving of his nephew's conduct. The intercourse was altogether objectionable. Talk was engendered,--talk of an undesirable description; and this was excessively disagreeable to the Marchese, who had views for his nephew which might be seriously compromised by it. A liaison of the kind, let the real nature of it be what it would, was in any case discreditable to his nephew and heir, and damaging more or less to the position which he wished to see the young man occupy in the town. It was especially so, as has been said, at the present conjuncture.

Then, of course, it could not be otherwise than injurious to the girl.

She had, in some sort, been recommended to his care. And it disturbed him much, that the conduct of his nephew should be the means of damaging her reputation.

Yet the Marchese, being a man of sense, knew very well that it would not have done any good to attempt to exercise any such authority over the young man as to forbid him to visit the lodging of the Venetians. In the first place, such a step would, according to the notions and ways of looking at things of the society in which he lived, have placed him himself in a very ridiculous light;--a danger which was not to be contemplated for an instant! And, besides, the Marchese was very well aware that even if such an attempt did not cause his nephew to a.s.sume a position of open rebellion, it would only have the effect of making him do secretly and still more objectionably what he did, as it was, comparatively openly.

Comparatively, it must be said; for Ludovico was very much more frequently at the little house in the Strada di S. Eufemia than his uncle wotted of.

Not much more frequently, however, than was very well known by most of his contemporaries and fellow-habitues of the Circolo,--by pretty well the whole of the "society" of Ravenna, that is to say. And in the earlier part of the time in question,--of the eight months, that is, from the March in which the young artist came to Ravenna, to the November in which Signor Ercole Stadione had made his journey to Milan there had been plenty of joking and raillery about Ludovico's enthralment by the "bella Veneziana," and many attempts to compete with him for so very attractive and desirable a "buona fortuna." But all this had only been at the beginning of the time. Ludovico had taken the matter in a tone and in a humour, that had soon put an end to all such joking and to all such attempts. It was in all ways easy for him to do this. He was popular, and much liked among the young men, in the first place. His social position, as the heir of one of the first families of the province whether for wealth or n.o.bility of race, and of a man of such social standing as his uncle, made it a very undesirable thing to quarrel with him. And even without any of such vantage-ground of position, Ludovico di Castelmare was a man, whose path it would have been dangerous to cross in such a matter as this, and who was very well capable of affording to any woman, in whom he was interested, a very efficient protection against any such offence as the most enterprising of the jeunesse doree of Ravenna might have been disposed to offer her.