“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.  “Nobili 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 Nobili to do in the Garfagnana?”

“Ask him,” lisped Orazio; “it will save more talking.  I wish Nobili 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 (Baldassare 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.  Dick, 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 Nobili is engaged to marry the Marchesa Guinigi’s little niece.  Dear little thing, they say—­like an English ’mees’—­fair, with red hair.”

“Is that your style of beauty?” lisped Orazio, looking hard at him.  But Ruspoli did not notice him.

“But that’s not half,” cried Malatesta.  “You are an innocent, Ruspoli.  Let me baptize you with scandal.”