“Is my proposal accepted?” Count Marescotti inquired, anxiously turning toward the marchesa, who sat listening to them with a deeply-offended air.

“And mine too?” put in the cavaliere.  “Both can be combined.  I should so much like to show Enrica the tombs of the Trenta.  We have been a famous family in our time.  Do not refuse us, marchesa.”

All this was entirely out of the habits of Casa Guinigi.  Hitherto Enrica had been kept in absolute subjection.  If she were present no one spoke to her, or noticed her.  Now all this was to be changed, because Count Marescotti had come up from Rome.  Enrica was not only to be gazed at and flattered, but to engross attention.

The marchesa showed evident tokens of serious displeasure.  Had Count Marescotti not been present, she would assuredly have expressed this displeasure in very strong language.  In all matters connected with her niece, with her household, and with the management of her own affairs, she could not tolerate remark, much less interference.  Every kind of interference was offensive to her.  She believed in herself, as I have said, blindly:  never, up to that time, had that belief been shaken.  All this discussion was, to her mind, worse than interference—­it was absolute revolution.  She inwardly resolved to shut up her house and go into the country, rather than submit to it.  She eyed the count, who stood waiting for an answer, as if he were an enemy, and scowled at the excellent Trenta.

Enrica, too, had fixed her eyes upon her beseechingly; Enrica evidently wanted to go.  The marchesa had already opened her lips to give an abrupt refusal, when she felt a warning hand laid upon her arm.  Again she was shaken in her purpose of refusal.  She rose, and approached the card-table.

“I shall take time to consider,” she replied to the inquiring eyes awaiting her reply.

The marchesa took up the pack of cards and examined the markers.  She was debating with herself what Trenta could possibly mean by his extraordinary conduct, twice repeated.

“You had better retire now,” she said to Enrica, with an expression of hostility her niece knew too well.  “You have listened to quite enough folly for one night.  Men are flatterers.”

“Not I! not I!” cried Marescotti.  “I never say any thing but what I mean.”

And he flew toward the door in order to open it before Enrica could reach it.

“All good angels guard you!” he whispered, with a tender voice, into her ear, as, greatly confused, she passed by him, into the anteroom.  “May you find all men as true as I!  Per Dio! she is the living image of the young Madonna!” he added, half aloud, gazing after her.  “Countenance, manner, air—­it is perfect!”

A match was now produced out of Trenta’s pocket.  The candles were lighted, and the casements closed.  The party then sat down to whist.