“Well, what I have seen, I like.  As for the theatre, that Marchese Lamberto, whom you saw, knows what singing is as well as you do.  I shall please him on the stage; and, if so, as I see very well, I shall please all the rest of Ravenna.  But—­”

“But what?  There is always a `but.’  What is it this time?” said the old man.

“As if you did not know as well as I!” said Bianca, with a little toss.  “Is what I can do on the theatre of Ravenna the thing that is most in my thoughts?”

“’Twas you who mentioned it first,” said Quinto.  “I spoke of it merely with reference to that man, the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare.  He is one of the first, if not the very first, man in the city; and everybody is cap in hand before him.  Evidently a rich man.”

“And he is a musician, you say?” rejoined Quinto.

“Fanatico!  But what matters that; except, indeed, as a stepping-stone?  What has music done for me?  The Marchese Lamberto is a bachelor, Quinto.”

“Ha! what, the old man?” said Quinto, looking sharply at her.

“Yes, the old man, as you call him.  Not so old but he might be your son, friend Quinto.  But there is the young man, the Marchese Ludovico, whom you also saw, when they met us on the road.  He is the nephew and heir to the other—­a bachelor too—­and as pretty a fellow as one would wish to see into the bargain; a charming fellow.”

“So was the Duca di Lodi at Milan,” said the old man, quietly; “a very charming fellow—­charming and charmed into the bargain.  But—­”

“Yes!  I don’t need to ask the meaning of your `but.’  We know all about that; but what is the good of going back upon it?” said Bianca, throwing herself at full length upon a sofa, and tossing her hat on to the ground, with some little display of ill-temper, as she spoke.

“Only for the sake of the light past mistakes may throw on future hopes,” replied Quinto, with philosophic calmness.

“Bah-mistakes—­what mistake?  There was no mistake, but for that infamous old wretch of a governor,” said Bianca, with an expression which the individual referred to would hardly have recognized as beautiful, if he could have seen it.

“Yes!  I know.  May the devil give him his due!  But, bambina mia, there are wretches of governors here too, it is to be feared, no less infamous.”

“What do you mean?  What did we come here then for?” cried Bianca, rearing herself on her elbow on the sofa, and looking at her old friend with wide-opened eyes of angry surprise.

“In the first place, cara mia, because it was necessary to go somewhere; and, in the second place, because I should be very much at a loss to name any place where the governors are not infamous wretches, every whit as bad as at Milan.  ’Tis the way of them, my poor child.  But you see, Bianca dear, to return to what we were saying, there was a little mistake at Milan.  The Duca di Lodi did not go off into the country, and leave you plantee la, to please himself.”