Corte turned his face to the Chief, and they spoke together for some minutes:  after which, having had names of noble devoted women, dead and living, cited to him, in answer to brutal bellowings against that sex, and hearing of the damsel under debate as one who was expected and was welcome, he flung himself upon the ground again, inviting calamity by premature resignation.  Giulio Bandinelli stretched his hand for Carlo’s glass, and spied the approach of the signorina.

“Dark,” he said.

“A jewel of that complexion,” added Agostino, by way of comment.

“She has scorching eyes.”

“She may do mischief; she may do mischief; let it be only on the right Side!”

“She looks fat.”

“She sits doubled up and forward, don’t you see, to relieve the poor donkey.  You, my Giulio, would call a swan fat if the neck were not always on the stretch.”

“By Bacchus! what a throat she has!”

“And well interjected, Giulio!  It runs down like wine, like wine, to the little ebbing and flowing wave!  Away with the glass, my boy!  You must trust to all that’s best about you to spy what’s within.  She makes me young—­young!”

Agostino waved his hand in the form of a salute to her on the last short ascent.  She acknowledged it gracefully; and talking at intervals to Carlo Ammiani, who footed briskly by her side, she drew by degrees among the eyes fixed on her, some of which were not gentle; but hers were for the Chief, at whose feet, when dismounted by Ammiani’s solicitous aid, she would have knelt, had he not seized her by her elbows, and put his lips to her cheek.

“The signorina Vittoria, gentlemen,” said Agostino.

CHAPTER III

The old man had introduced her with much of the pride of a father displaying some noble child of his for the first time to admiring friends.

“She is one of us,” he pursued; “a daughter of Italy!  My daughter also; is it not so?”

He turned to her as for a confirmation.  The signorina pressed his fingers.  She was a little intimidated, and for the moment seemed shy and girlish.  The shade of her broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid features.

“Now, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, and we may proceed to business,” said Agostino, formally but as he conducted the signorina to place her at the feet of the Chief, she beckoned to her servant, who was holding the animal she had ridden.  He came up to her, and presented himself in something of a military posture of attention to her commands.  These were that he should take the poor brute to water, and then lead him back to Baveno, and do duty in waiting upon her mother.  The first injunction was received in a decidedly acquiescent manner.  On hearing the second, which directed his abandonment of his post of immediate watchfulness over her safety, the man flatly objected with a “Signorina, no.”