“No, no, not altogether.”  The marchesa moved nervously in her chair, carefully avoiding meeting Trenta’s steely blue eyes.  “I have saved money, Cesarino—­I have indeed,” she repeated.  The marchesa was becoming quite affable.  “I cannot touch the heirlooms.  But Enrica will have a small portion.”

“Well, well,” replied Trenta.  “But it is impossible you can have saved much since the termination of that last long suit with the chapter about your right to the second bench in the nave of the cathedral, the bench awarded to Count Nobili when he bought the palace.  The expense was too great, and the trial too recent.”

She made no reply.

“Then there was that other affair with the municipality about the right of flying the flag from the Guinigi Tower.  I do not mention small affairs, such as disputes with your late steward at Corellia, trials at Barga, nor litigation here at Lucca on a small scale.  My dear marchesa, you have found the law an expensive pastime.”  The cavaliere’s round eyes twinkled as he said this.  “Enrica is therefore virtually portionless.  The choice lies between a husband who will wed her for herself, or a convent.  If I understand your views, a convent would not suit you.  Besides, you would not surely voluntarily condemn a girl, without vocation, and brought up beside you, to the seclusion of a convent?”

“But Enrica is a child—­I tell you she is too young to think about marriage, cavaliere.”

The marchesa spoke with anger.  She would stave off as long as possible the principal question—­that of marriage.  Sudden proposals, too, emanating from others, always nettled her; it narrowed her prerogative.

“Besides,” objected the marchesa, still fencing with the real question, “who can answer for Count Marescotti?  He is so capricious!  Supposing he likes Enrica to-day, he may change before to-morrow.  Do you really think he can care enough about Enrica to marry her?  Her name would be nothing to him.”

“I think he does care for her,” replied Trenta, reflectively; “but that can be ascertained.  Enrica is a fit consort for a far greater man than Count Marescotti.  Not that he, as you say, would care about her name.  Remember, she will be your heiress—­that is something.”

“Yes, yes, my heiress,” answered the marchesa, vaguely; for the dreadful question rose up in her mind, “What would Enrica have to inherit?”

That very day she had received a most insolent letter from a creditor.  Under the influence of the painful thoughts, she turned her head aside and said nothing.  One of her hands was raised over her eyes to shade them from the candles; the other rested on her dark dress.

If a marriage were really in question, what could be more serious?  Was not Enrica’s marriage to raise up heirs to the Guinigi—­heirs to inherit the palace and the heirlooms?  If—­the marchesa banished the thought, but it would return, and haunt her like a spectre—­if not the palace, then at least the name—­the historic name, revered throughout Italy?  Nothing could deprive Enrica of the name—­that name was in itself a dower.  That Enrica should possess both name and palace, with a husband of her—­the marchesa’s—­own choosing, had been her dream, but it had been a far-off dream—­a dream to be realized in the course of years.