“It’s all very fine,” rejoined Trenta, “but I wonder he does not frighten Enrica.  There she stands, quite still.  I can’t see her face, but she seems to like it.  It’s all very fine,” he repeated, nodding his white head reflectively.  “Republicans, communists, orators, poets, heretics—­all the plagues of hell!  Dio buono! give me a little plain common-sense—­plain common-sense, and a paternal government.  As to Marescotti, these new-fangled notions will turn his brain; he’ll end in a mad-house.  I don’t believe he is quite in his senses at this very minute.  Look! look!  What strides he is taking up and down!  For the love of Heaven, my boy, run and fasten the trap-door tight!  He may fall through!  He’s not safe!  I swear it, by all the saints!” Baldassare, shaking with suppressed laughter, secured the trap-door.

“I must say you are a little hard on the count,” Baldassare said.  “Why, he’s only composing.  I know his way.  Trust me, it’s a sonnet.  He is composing a sonnet addressed perhaps to the signorina.  He admires her very much.”

Trenta smiled, and mentally determined, for the second time, to take the earliest opportunity of speaking to Count Marescotti before the ridiculous reports circulating in Lucca reached him.

“Per Bacco!” he replied, “when the count is as old as I am, he will have learned that quiet is the greatest luxury a man can enjoy—­especially in Italy, where the climate is hot and fevers frequent.”

How long the count would have continued in the clouds, it is impossible to say, had he not been suddenly brought down to earth—­or, at least, the earth on the top of the tower—­by something that suddenly struck his gaze.

Enrica, who had strained her eyes in vain to discover some trace of Nobili in the narrow street below, or in the garden behind his palace, had now thrown herself on the grass under the overhanging branches of the glossy bay-trees.  These inclosed her as in a bower.  Her colorless face rested upon her hand, her eyes were turned toward the ground, and her long blond hair fell in a tangled mass below the folds of her veil, upon her white dress.  The count stood transfixed before her.

“Move not, sweet vision!” he cried.  “Be ever so!  That innocent face shaded by the classic bay; that white robe rustling with the thrill of womanly affinities; those fair locks floating like an aureole in the breeze thy breath has softly perfumed!  Rest there enthroned—­the world thy backguard, the sky thy canopy!  Stay, let me crown thee!”

As he spoke he hastily plucked some sprays of bay, which he twisted into a wreath.  He approached Enrica, who had remained quite still, and, kneeling at her feet, placed the wreath upon her head.

“Enrica Guinigi”—­the count spoke so softly that neither Trenta nor Baldassare could catch the words—­“there is something in your beauty too ethereal for this world.”

Enrica, covered with blushes, tried to rise, but he held out his hands imploringly for her to remain.