Comments on the petty disturbance had been all the while passing at the Caffe La Scala, where sat Agostino Balderini, with, Count Medole and others, who, if the order for their arrest had been issued, were as safe in that place as in their own homes.  Their policy, indeed, was to show themselves openly abroad.  Agostino was enjoying the smoke of paper cigarettes, with all prudent regard for the well-being of an inflammable beard.  Perceiving Wilfrid going by, he said, ’An Englishman!  I continue to hope much from his countrymen.  I have no right to do so, only they insist on it.  They have promised, and more than once, to sail a fleet to our assistance across the plains of Lombardy, and I believe they will—­probably in the watery epoch which is to follow Metternich.  Behold my Carlo approaching.  The heart of that lad doth so boil the brain of him, he can scarcely keep the lid on.  What is it now?  Speak, my son.’

Carlo Ammiani had to communicate that he had just seen a black circle to Vittoria’s name on two public playbills.  His endeavour to ape a deliberate gravity while he told the tale, roused Agostino’s humouristic ire.

‘Round her name?’ said Agostino.

‘Yes; in every bill.’

‘Meaning that she is suspected!’

‘Meaning any damnable thing you like.’

‘It’s a device of the enemy.’

Agostino, glad of the pretext to recur to his habitual luxurious irony, threw himself back, repeating ’It ’s a device of the enemy.  Calculate, my son, that the enemy invariably knows all you intend to do:  determine simply to astonish him with what you do.  Intentions have lungs, Carlo, and depend on the circumambient air, which, if not designedly treacherous, is communicative.  Deeds, I need not remark, are a different body.  It has for many generations been our Italian error to imagine a positive blood relationship—­not to say maternity itself—­existing between intentions and deeds.  Nothing of the sort!  There is only the intention of a link to unite them.  You perceive?  It’s much to be famous for fine intentions, so we won’t complain.  Indeed, it’s not our business to complain, but Posterity’s; for fine intentions are really rich possessions, but they don’t leave grand legacies; that is all.  They mean to possess the future:  they are only the voluptuous sons of the present.  It’s my belief, Carlino, from observation, apprehension, and other gifts of my senses, that our paternal government is not unacquainted with our intention to sing a song in a certain opera.  And it may have learnt our clumsy method of enclosing names publicly, at the bidding of a non-appointed prosecutor, so to, isolate or extinguish them.  Who can say?  Oh, ay!  Yes! the machinery that can so easily be made rickety is to blame; we admit that; but if you will have a conspiracy like a Geneva watch, you must expect any slight interference with the laws that govern it to upset the mechanism altogether.  Ah-a! look yonder, but not hastily, my Carlo.  Checco is nearing us, and he knows that he has fellows after him.  And if I guess right, he has a burden to deliver to one of us.’