Laura said, without smiling, ‘The street-door opens with a key,’ and she placed the key in his hand, also her fan to carry.  Once out of the house, she was sure that he would not forsake his immediate charge of the fan:  she walked on, heavily veiled, confident of his following.  The Duchess of Graatli’s house neighboured the Corso Francesco; numerous carriages were disburdening their freights of fair guests, and now and then an Austrian officer in full uniform ran up the steps, glittering under the lamps.  ’I go in among them,’ thought Laura.  It rejoiced her that she had come on foot.  Forgetting Beppo, and her black fan, as no Italian woman would have done but she who paced in an acute quivering of the anguish of hopeless remembrances and hopeless thirst of vengeance, she suffered herself to be conducted in the midst of the guests, and shuddered like one who has taken a fever-chill as she fulfilled the duchess’s directions; she passed down the length of the saloon, through a light of visages that were not human to her sensations.

Meantime Beppo, oppressed by his custody of the fan, and expecting that most serviceable lady’s instrument to be sent for at any minute, stood among a strange body of semi-feudal retainers below, where he was soon singled out by the duchess’s chasseur, a Styrian, who, masking his fury under jest, in the South-German manner, endeavoured to lead him up to an altercation.  But Beppo was much too supple to be entrapped.  He apologized for any possible offences that he might have committed, assuring the chasseur that he considered one hat as good as another, and some hats better than others:  in proof of extreme cordiality, he accepted the task of repeating the chasseur’s name, which was ’Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz,’ a tolerable mouthful for an Italian; and it was with remarkable delicacy that Beppo contrived to take upon himself the whole ridicule of his vile pronunciation of the unwieldy name.  Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz offered him beer to refresh him after the effort.  While Beppo was drinking, he seized the fan.  ‘Good; good; a thousand thanks,’ said Beppo, relinquishing it; ‘convey it aloft, I beseech you.’  He displayed such alacrity and lightness of limb at getting rid of it, that Jacob thrust it between the buttons of his shirtfront, returning it to his possession by that aperture.  Beppo’s head sank.  A handful of black lace and cedarwood chained him to the spot!  He entreated the men in livery to take the fan upstairs and deliver it to the Signora Laura Piaveni; but they, being advised by Jacob, refused.  ‘Go yourself,’ said Jacob, laughing, and little prepared to see the victim, on whom he thought that for another hour at least he had got his great paw firmly, take him at his word.  Beppo sprang into the hall and up the stairs.  The duchess’s maid, ivory-faced Aennchen, was flying past him.  She saw a very taking dark countenance making eyes at her, leaned her ear shyly, and pretending to understand all that was said by the rapid foreign tongue, acted from the suggestion of the sole thing which she did understand.  Beppo had mentioned the name of the Signora Piaveni.  ‘This way,’ she indicated with her finger, supposing that of course he wanted to see the signora very urgently.