Nevertheless, much of a chiseller’s work is mechanical, and as the smooth iron ran in and out of the tiny curves under the gentle tap of the hammer, the young man’s thoughts went back to the girl he had left at the top of the stairs a quarter of an hour earlier; he thought of her, as he did daily, as his promised wife, and he fell to wondering when it would be, and how it would be.  They often talked of the place in which they would live, as they had done that morning; and as neither of them was very imaginative, there was a considerable similarity between the speculations they indulged in at one time and at another.  It was always to be a snug home, high up, with a terrace, pots of carnations, and red curtains.  Their only difference of opinion concerned the colour of the walls and furniture.  Like most Italians, they had very little sense of colour, and thought only of having everything gay, as they called it; that is to say, the upholstery was to be chosen of the most vivid hues, probably of those horrible tints known as aniline.  Italians, as a rule, and especially those who belong to the same class as the Pandolfi family, have a strong dislike for the darker and softer tones.  To them anything which is not vivid is sad, melancholy, and depressing to the senses.  Gianbattista saw in his mind’s eye a little apartment after his own heart, and was happy in the idea.  But, as he followed the train of thought, it led him to the comparison of the home to which he proposed to take his wife with the one in which they now lived under her father’s roof, and suddenly the scene of the previous evening rose clearly in the young man’s imagination.  He dropped his hammer, and stared up at the grated windows.

He went over the whole incident, and perhaps for the first time realised its true importance, and all the danger there might be in the future should Marzio attempt to pursue his plan to the end.  Gianbattista had only once seen the lawyer who was thus suddenly thrust into his place.  He remembered a thin, cadaverous man, in a long and gloomy black coat, but that was all.  He did not recall his voice, nor the expression of his face; he had only seen him once, and had thought little enough of the meeting.  It seemed altogether impossible, and beyond the bounds of anything rational, that this stranger should ever really be brought forward to be Lucia’s husband.

For a moment the whole thing looked like an evil dream, and Gianbattista smiled as he looked down again at his work.  Then the reality of the occurrence rose up again and confronted him stubbornly.  He was not mistaken, Marzio had actually pronounced those words, and Don Paolo had sprung forward to prevent Gianbattista from attacking his master then and there.  The young man looked at his work, holding his tools in his hands, but hesitating to lay the point of the chisel on the silver, as he hesitated to believe the evidence of his memory.

CHAPTER V