Trenta laughed quietly to himself, then stroked his well-shaved chin.

"Signorina," said the count, at length breaking silence, "permit me to offer my excuses for not having sooner perceived you. Will you forgive me?"

"Mio Dio!" muttered the marchesa to herself, "he will turn the child's head with his fine phrases."

"I have nothing to forgive, count," answered Enrica simply. She spoke low. Her voice matched the expression of her face; there was a natural tone of plaintiveness in it.

"When I last saw you," continued the count, standing as if spellbound before her, "you were only a child. Now," and his kindling eyes riveted themselves upon her, "you are a woman. Like the magic rose that was the guerdon of the Troubadours, you have pa.s.sed in an hour from leaf to bud, from bud to fairest flower. You were, of course, at the Orsetti ball last night?" He asked this question, trying to rouse himself. "What ball in Lucca would be complete without you?"

"I was not there," answered Enrica, blushing deeply and glancing timidly at the marchesa, who, with a scowl on her face, was fanning herself violently.

"Not there!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Marescotti, with wonder.--"Why, marchesa, is it not barbarous to shut up your beautiful niece? Is it because you deem her too precious to be gazed upon? If so, you are right."

And again his eyes, full of ardent admiration, were bent on Enrica.

Enrica dropped her head to hide her confusion, and resumed her knitting.

It was a golden sunset. The sun was sinking behind the delicate arcades of the Moorish garden, and spreading broad patches of rosy light upon the marble. The shrubs, with their bright flowers, were set against a tawny orange sky. The air was full of light--the last gleams of parting day. The splash of the fountain upon the lion's heads was heard in the silence, the heavy perfume of the magnolia-flowers stole in wafts through the sculptured cas.e.m.e.nts, creeping upward in the soft evening air.

Still, motionless before Enrica, Marescotti was rapidly falling into a poetic rapture. The marchesa broke the awkward silence.

"Enrica is a child," she said, dryly. "She knows nothing about b.a.l.l.s.

She has never been to one. Pray do not put such ideas into her head, count," she added, looking at him angrily.

"But, marchesa, your niece is no child--she is a lovely woman,"

insisted the count, his eyes still riveted upon her. The marchesa did not consider it necessary to answer him.

Meanwhile the cavaliere, who had returned to his seat near her, had watched the moment when no one was looking that way, had given her a significant glance, and placed his finger warningly upon his lip.

Not understanding what he meant by this action, the marchesa was at first inclined to resent it as a liberty, and to rebuke him; but she thought better of it, and only glanced at him haughtily.

It was not the first time she had found it to her advantage to accept Trenta's hints. Trenta was a man of the world, and he had his eyes open. What he meant, however, she could not even guess.

Meanwhile the count had drawn a chair beside Enrica.

"Yes, yes, the Orsetti ball," he said, absently, pa.s.sing his hand through the ma.s.ses of black curls that rested upon his forehead.

He was following out, in his own mind, the notion of addressing an ode to her in the character of the young Madonna--the uninstructed Madonna--without that look of pensive suffering painters put into her eyes.

The Madonna figured prominently in Marescotti's creed, spite of his belief in the stern precepts of Savonarola--the plastic creed of an artist, made up of heavenly eyes, ravishing forms, melodious sounds, rich color, sweeping rhythms, moonlight, and violent emotions.

"I was not there myself--no, or I should have been aware you had not honored the Countess Orsetti with your presence. But in the morning--that glorious ma.s.s in the old cathedral--you were there?"

Enrica answered that she had not left the house all day, at which the count raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

"That ma.s.s," he continued, "in celebration of a local miracle (respectable from its antiquity), has haunted me ever since. The gloomy splendor of the venerable cathedral overwhelmed me; the happy faces that met me on every side, the spontaneous rejoicing of the whole population, touched me deeply. I longed to make them free. They deserve freedom; they shall have it!" A dark fire glistened in his eye. "I have been lost in day-dreams ever since; I must give them utterance." And he gazed steadfastly at Enrica.--"I have not left my room, marchesa, ever since"--at last Marescotti left Enrica's side, and approached the marchesa--"until an hour ago, when Balda.s.sare"--and the count bowed to Adonis, still seated sulky in a corner--"came and carried me off in the hope that you would permit me to join your rubber. Had I known"--he added, in a lower voice, bending his head toward Enrica. Then he stopped, suddenly aware that every one was listening to all he said (a fact which he had been far too much absorbed to notice previously), colored, and retreated to the sofa with the spindle-legs.

"Per Bacco!" whispered the cavaliere to the marchesa, sitting near her on the other side; "I am convinced poor Marescotti has never touched a morsel of food since that ma.s.s--I am certain of it. He always lives upon a poetical diet, poor devil!--rose-leaves and the beauties of Nature, with a warm dish now and then in the way of a _ragout_ of conspiracy. G.o.d help him! he's a greater lunatic than ever." This was spoken aside into the marchesa's ear. "If you have a soul of pity, marchesa, order him a chicken before we begin playing, or he will faint upon the floor." The marchesa smiled.

"I don't like impressionable people at all," she responded, in the same tone of voice. "In my opinion, feelings should be concealed, not exhibited." And she sighed, recalling her own silent vigils on the floor beneath, unknown to all save the cavaliere.

"But--a thousand pardons!" cried Marescotti, gradually waking up to some social energy, "I have been talking only of myself! Talking of myself in your presence, ladies!--What can we do to amuse your niece, marchesa? Lucca is horribly dull. If she is to go neither to festivals nor to b.a.l.l.s, it will not be possible for her to exist here."

"It will be quite possible," answered the marchesa, greatly displeased at the turn the conversation was taking. "Quite possible, if I choose it. Enrica will exist where I please. You forget she has lived here for seventeen years. You see she has not died of it. She stays at home by my order, count."

Enrica cast a pleading look at her aunt, as if to say, "Can I help all this?" As for Count Marescotti, he was far too much engrossed with his own thoughts to be aware that he was treading on delicate ground.

"But, marchesa," he urged, "you can't really keep your niece any longer shut up like the fairy princess in the tower. Let me be permitted to act the part of the fairy prince and liberate her."

Again he had turned, and again his glowing eyes fixed themselves on Enrica, who had withdrawn as much as possible behind the curtains. Her cheeks were dyed with blushes. She shrank from the count's too ardent glances, as though those glances were an involuntary treason to n.o.bili.

"Something must be done," muttered the count, meditating.

"Will you trust your niece with Cavaliere Trenta, and permit me to accompany them on some little excursion in the city, to make up for the loss of the cathedral and the ball?"

The marchesa, who found the count decidedly troublesome, not to say impertinent, had opened her lips to give an unqualified negative, but another glance from Trenta checked her.

"An excellent idea," put in the cavaliere, before she could speak. "With _me_, marchesa--with _me_" he added, looking at her deprecatingly.

Trenta loved Enrica better than any thing in the world, but carefully concealed it, the better to serve her with her aunt.

"As for me, I am ready for any thing." And, to show his agility, he rose, and, with the help of his stick, made a _glissade_ on the floor.

Balda.s.sare laughed out loud from the corner. It gratified his wounded vanity to see his elder ridiculous.

Marescotti, greatly alarmed, started forward and offered his arm, in order to lead the cavaliere back to his seat, but Trenta indignantly refused his a.s.sistance. The marchesa shook her head.

"Calm yourself," she said, looking at him compa.s.sionately. "Calm yourself, Cesarino, I should not like you to have a fit in my house."

"Fit!--che che?" cried Trenta, angrily. "Not while I am in the presence of the young and fair," he added, recovering himself. "It is that which has kept me alive all this time. No, marchesa, I refuse to sit down again. I refuse to sit down, or to take a hand at your rubber, until something is settled."

This was addressed to the marchesa, who had caught him by the tails of his immaculate blue coat and forced him into a seat beside her.

"_Vive la bagatelle_! Where shall we go? You cannot refuse the count,"

he added, giving the marchesa a meaning look. "What shall we do? Let us all propose something. Let me see. I propose to improve Enrica's mind. She is young--the young have need of improvement. I propose to take her to the church of San Frediano and to show her the ancient fresco representing the discovery of the Holy Countenance; also the Trenta chapel, containing the tombs of my family. I will try to explain to her their names and history.--What do you say to this, my child?"

And the cavaliere turned to Enrica, who, little accustomed to be noticed at all, much less to occupy the whole conversation, looked supplicatingly at her aunt. She would gladly have run out of the room if she had dared.

"No, no," exclaimed the irrepressible Balda.s.sare, from the corner.

"Never! What a ghastly idea! Tombs and a mouldy old church! You may find satisfaction, Signore Trenta, in the contemplation of your tomb, but the signorina is not eighty, nor am I, nor is the count. I propose that after being shut up so many years the Guinigi Palace be thrown open, and a ball given on the first floor in honor of the signorina.

There should be a band from Florence and presents from Paris for the cotillon. What do you say to _that_, Signora Marchesa?" asked the misguided young man, with unconscious self-satisfaction.

If a mine had sprung under the marchesa's feet, she could not have been more horrified. What she would have said to Balda.s.sare is difficult to guess, but fortunately for him, while she was struggling for words in which she could suitably express her sense of his presumption, Trenta, seeing what was coming, was beforehand.

"Be silent, Balda.s.sare," he exclaimed, "or, per Dio, I will never bring you here again."

Before Balda.s.sare could offer his apologies, the count burst in--