"What happened?" asked Count Orsetti.

"A secret commission has been sent from Rome." There was a breathless silence. "The government is alarmed. A secret commission to examine Count Marescotti's papers, and to imprison him."

"That's his uncle's doing--the Jesuit!" cried Malatesta. "This is the second time. Marescotti will be shut up for life."

"Did they catch him?" asked Orsetti.

"No; he got out of an upper window, and escaped across the roof. He had taken all the upper floor of the Universo for his accomplices, who were expected from Paris."

"Honor to Lucca!" Malatesta put in. "We are progressing."

"He's gone," continued Orazio, falling back exhausted on his chair, "but his papers--" Here Franchi thought it right to pause and faintly wink. "I'll tell you the rest when I have smoked a cigar. Give me a light."

"No, no, you must smoke afterward," said Orsetti, rapping him smartly on the back. "Go on--what about Marescotti's papers?"

"Compromising--very," murmured Franchi, feebly, leaning back out of the range of Orsetti's arm.

"The Red count was a communist, we all know," observed Malatesta.

"_Mon cher_! he was a poet also," responded Orazio. Orazio's languor never interfered with his love of scandal. "When any lady struck his fancy, Marescotti made a sonnet--a damaging practice. These sonnets are a diary of his life. The police were much diverted, I a.s.sure you, and so was I. I was in the hotel; I gave them the key to all the ladies."

"You might have done better than waste your fine energies in making ladies names public town-talk," said Orsetti, frowning.

"Well, that's a matter of opinion," replied Orazio, with a certain calm insolence peculiar to him. "I have no ladylove in Lucca."

"Delicious!" broke in Malatesta, brightening up all over. "Don't quarrel over a choice bone.--Who is compromised the most? I'll have her name placarded. Some one must make a row."

"Enrica Guinigi is the most compromised," answered Orazio, striking a match to light his cigar. "Marescotti celebrates her as the young Madonna before the archangel Gabriel visited her. Ha! ha!"

Malatesta gave a low whistle.

"Enrica Guinigi! Is not that the marchesa's niece?" asked Orsetti; "a pretty, fair-faced girl I see driving with her aunt on the ramparts sometimes?"

"The same," answered Malatesta. "But what, in the name of all the devils, could Marescotti know of her? No one has ever spoken to her."

Balda.s.sare now leaned forward and listened; the name of Enrica woke him from his sleep. He hardly dared to join the circle formed round Franchi, for Franchi always snubbed him, and called him "Young Galipots," when Trenta was absent.

"Perhaps Marescotti was the archangel Gabriel himself," said Malatesta, with a leer.

"But answer my question," insisted Orsetti, who, as an avowed suitor of Lucca maidens had their honor and good name at heart. "Don't be a fool, but tell me what you know. This idle story, involving the reputation of a young girl, is shameful. I protest against it!"

"Do you?" sneered Orazio, leaning back, and pulling at his sandy mustache. "That is because you know nothing about it. This _Sainte Vierge_ has already been much talked about--first, with n.o.bili, who lives opposite--when _ma tante_ was sleeping. Then she spent a day with several men upon the Guinigi Tower, an elegant retirement among the crows. After that old Trenta offered her formally in marriage to Marescotti."

"What!--After the Guinigi Tower?" put in Malatesta. "Of course Marescotti refused her?"

"'Refused her, of course, with thanks.' So says the sonnet." Orazio went on to say all this in a calm, tranquil way, casting the bread of scandal on social waters as he puffed at his cigar. "It is very prettily rhymed--the sonnet--I have read it. The young Madonna is warmly painted. _Now, why did Marescotti refuse to marry her?_ That is what I want to know." And Franchi looked round upon his audience with a glance of gratified malice.

"Even in Lucca!--even in Lucca!" Malatesta clapped his hands and chuckled until he almost choked. "Laus Veneri!--the mighty G.o.ddess!--She has reared an altar even here in this benighted city. I was a skeptic, but a Paphian miracle has converted me. I must drink a punch in honor of the great G.o.ddess."

Here Balda.s.sare rose and leaned over from behind.

"I went up the Guinigi Tower with the party," he ventured to say.

"There were four of us. The Cavaliere Trenta told me in the street just before that it was all right, and that the lady had agreed to marry Count Marescotti. There can be no secret about it now that every one knows it. Count Marescotti raved so about the Signorina Enrica, that he nearly jumped over the parapet."

"Better for her if you had helped him over," muttered Orazio, with a sarcastic stare. "The sonnet would not then have been written."

But Balda.s.sare, conscious that he had intelligence that would make him welcome, stood his ground. "You do not seem to know what has happened," he continued.

"More news!" cried Malatesta. "Gracious heavens! Wave after wave it comes!--a mighty sea. I hear the distant roar--it dashes high!--It breaks!--Speak, oh, speak, Adonis!"

"The Marchesa Guinigi has left Lucca suddenly."

"Who cares? Do you, Pietrino?" asked Franchi of Orsetti, with a contemptuous glance at Balda.s.sare.

"Let him speak," cried Malatesta; "Balda.s.sare is an oracle."

"The marchesa left Lucca suddenly," persisted Balda.s.sare, not daring to notice Orsetti's insolence. "She took her niece with her."

"Have it cried about the streets," interrupted Orazio, opening his eyes.

"Yesterday morning an express came down for Cavaliere Trenta. The ancient tower of Corellia has been entirely burnt. The marchesa was rescued."

"And the niece--is the niece gone to glory on the funeral-pyre?"

"No," answered Balda.s.sare, helplessly, settling his stupid eyes on Orazio, whose thrusts he could not parry. "She was saved by Count n.o.bili, who was accidentally shooting on the mountains near."

"Oh, bah!" cried Malatesta, with a knowing grin; "I never believe in accidents. There is a ruling power. That power is love--love--love."

"The cavaliere is not yet returned."

"This is a strange story," said Orsetti, gravely. "n.o.bili too, and Marescotti. She must be a lively damsel. What will Nera Boccarini say to her truant knight, who rescues maidens _accidentally_ on distant mountains? What had n.o.bili to do in the Garf.a.gnana?"

"Ask him," lisped Orazio; "it will save more talking. I wish n.o.bili joy of his bargain," he added, turning to Malatesta.

"I wonder that he cares to take up with Marescotti's leavings."

"Here's Ruspoli, crossing the square. Perhaps he can throw some light on this strange story," said Orsetti.

Prince Ruspoli, still at Lucca, is on a visit to some relatives. He is, as I have said, decidedly horsey, and is much looked up to by the "golden youths," his companions, in consequence. As a gentleman rider at races and steeple-chases, as a hunter on the Roman Campagna, and the driver of a "stage" on the Corso, Ruspoli is unrivaled. He breeds racers, and he has an English stud-groom, who has taught him to speak English with a drawl, enlivened by stable-slang. He is slim, fair, and singularly awkward, and of a uniform pale yellow--yellow complexion, yellow hair, and yellow eyebrows. Poole's clothes never fit him, and he walks, as he dances, with his legs far apart, as if a horse were under him. He carries a hunting-whip in his hand spite of the month--October (these little anomalies are undetected in New Italy, where there is so much to learn). Prince Ruspoli swings round this whip as he mounts the steps of the club. The others, who are watching his approach, are secretly devoured with envy.

"Wall, Pietrino--wall, Beppo," said Ruspoli, shaking hands with Orsetti and Malatesta, and nodding to Orazio, out of whose sails he took the wind by force of stolid indifference (Balda.s.sare he ignored, or mistook him for a waiter, if he saw him at all), "you are all discussing the news, of course. Lucca's lively to-day. You'll all do in time, even to steeple-chases. We must run one down on the low grounds in the spring. d.i.c.k, my English groom, is always plaguing me about it."

Then Prince Ruspoli pulled himself together with a jerk, as a man does stiff from the saddle, laid his hunting-whip upon a table, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and looked round.

"What news have you heard?" asked Beppo Malatesta. "There's such a lot."

"Wall, the news I have heard is, that Count n.o.bili is engaged to marry the Marchesa Guinigi's little niece. Dear little thing, they say--like an English '_mees_'--fair, with red hair."