“I do not know,” answered the young man.  “I think you were in earnest for a moment.  I would not advise you to talk in that way before any one else.  People might interpret your meaning seriously.”

“After all, you yourself were threatening to cut my throat last night,” said Marzio, with a forced laugh.  “It is the same thing.  My life is as valuable as Paolo’s.  I only suggested that you should transfer your tender attentions from me to my brother.”

“It is one thing to threaten a man to his face.  It is quite another to offer a man a serious inducement to commit murder.  Since you have been so very frank with me, Sor Marzio, I will confess that if the choice lay between killing you, or killing Don Paolo, under the present circumstances I would not hesitate a moment.”

“And which would you—­”

“Neither,” replied the young man, with a cool laugh.  “Don Paolo is too good to be killed, and you are not good enough.  Come and look at the cherub’s head I have made.”

CHAPTER VI

Lucia’s cheerfulness was not genuine, and any one possessing greater penetration than her mother would have understood that she was, in reality, more frightened than she was willing to show.  The girl had a large proportion of common sense, combined with a quicker perception than the stout Signora Pandolfi.  She did not think that she knew anything about logic, and she had always shown a certain inconsistency in her affection for Gianbattista, but she had nevertheless a very clear idea of what was reasonable, a quality which is of immense value in difficulties, though it is very often despised in every-day life by people who believe themselves blessed by the inspirations of genius.

It seems very hard to make people of other nationalities understand that the Italians of the present day are not an imaginative people.  It is nevertheless true, and it is only necessary to notice that they produce few, if any, works of imagination.  They have no writers of fiction, no poets, few composers of merit and few artists who rank with those of other nations.  They possessed the creative faculty once; they have lost it in our day, and it does not appear that they are likely to regain it.  On the other hand, the Italians are remarkable engineers, first-rate mathematicians, clever, if unscrupulous, diplomatists.  Though they overrate their power and influence, they have shown a capacity for organisation which is creditable on the whole.  If they fail to obtain the position they seek in Europe, their failure will have been due to their inordinate vanity and over-governing, if I may coin the word, rather than to an innate want of intelligence.