All this filled Maestro Guglielmi with the prescience of success.  With Nobili in the house, what might not the chapter of accidents produce?  All this had occurred, too, without taking into account what the marchesa herself might have planned, when she had read the note of instructions he had written upon a page of his tablets.  Guglielmi thought he knew his friend and client the Marchesa Guinigi but little, if her fertile brain had not already created some complication that would have the effect of preventing Count Nobili’s departure that night.  The instant—­the immediate instant—­now lay with himself.  He was about to make the most of it.

When Guglielmi entered the room, Count Nobili received him with an expression of undisguised disgust.  Summoned by Nobili in a peremptory tone to say why he had brought him hither, Guglielmi broke forth with extraordinary volubility.  He had used, he declared, his influence with the marchesa throughout for his (Count Nobili’s) advantage—­solely for his advantage.  One word from him, and the Marchesa Guinigi would have availed herself of her legal claims in the most vindictive manner—­exposed family secrets—­made the whole transaction of the marriage public—­and so revenged herself upon him that Count Nobili would have no choice but to leave Lucca and Italy forever.

“All this I have prevented,” Guglielmi insisted emphatically.  “How could I serve you better?—­Could a brother have guarded your honor more jealously?  You will come to see and acknowledge the obligation in time—­yes, Count Nobili—­in time.  Time brings all things to light.  Time will exhibit my integrity, my disinterested devotion to your interests in their true aspect.  All little difficulties settled with my illustrious client, the Marchesa Guinigi (a high-minded and most courageous lady of the heroic type), established in Lucca in the full enjoyment of your enormous wealth—­with the lovely lady I have just seen by your side—­the enlightened benefactor of the city—­the patron of art—­the consoler of distress—­a leader of the young generation of nobles—­the political head of the new Italian party—­bearing the grandest name (of course you will adopt that of Guinigi), adorning that name with the example of noble actions—­a splendid career opens before you.  Yes, Count Nobili—­yes—­a career worthy of the loftiest ambition!”

“All this I have been the happy means of procuring for you.  Another advocate might have exasperated the marchesa’s passions for his own purposes; it would have been most easy.  But I,” continued Guglielmi, bringing his flaming eyes to bear upon Count Nobili, then raising them from him outward toward the darkening mountains as though he would call on the great Apennines to bear witness to his truth—­“I have scorned such base considerations.  With unexampled magnanimity I have brought about this marriage—­all this I have done, actuated by the purest, the most single-hearted motives.  In return, Count Nobili, I make one request—­I entreat you to believe that I am your friend—­”