“Well, I suppose you are right, Quinto.  And I suppose that that is what it must be!—­But—­well! it is time to be going to bed, I suppose; I am tired and sleepy!” said Bianca, rousing herself after a pause from a reverie into which she seemed to have fallen, and yawning as she got up from the sofa.

CHAPTER III

“Armed at All Points”

The quartiere which La Lalli found prepared at Ravenna for her and her travelling companion was a very eligible one.  It consisted of a very nicely-furnished sitting-room, with a bed-room opening off on one side for herself, and another similarly situated on the other side for her father.  There was also, behind, one little closet for a servant to sleep in, and another, still smaller, intended to serve as a kitchen.

On the morning following the conversation related in the last chapter Bianca, hearing Quinto coming out of his bed-room into the sitting-room about nine o’clock, called out to him from her bed: 

“Oh, papa!  I forgot to tell you last night that the Marchese and Signor Stadione are to be here at one o’clock to-day to hear me, and settle about the night of the 6th, you know.”

“All right, bambina mia!  I will be back in time.  I’m going to the cafe to get some breakfast,” called out Quinto through the door.

“Yes.  But, papa, be here at one o’clock, and do not come back before that.  E inteso?  And send me a cup of chocolate from the cafe.”

“Inteso!  I’ll be here at one, and not before,” said the old man through the door, with special emphasis on the last words.

Then Bianca called her maid, told her to bring the chocolate to her as soon as it came from the cafe, and then to come and dress her at ten.  Whether the intervening time was spent in sleep or meditation may be doubted; but, at all events, when the hour for action came Bianca was ready for it.

By means of the skilled and practised assistance of Gigia Daddi, the maid who had been with her ever since the first beginning of her stage career, the Diva had completed her toilette by half-past eleven.  But she had had, to a certain degree, a double toilette to perform.  All the component parts of a rich and very becoming morning-costume had been selected and assorted with due care, and minute attention to the effect each portion of it was calculated to produce in combination with the rest; and then they had been not put on, but laid out in order on the bed.  The more immediate purpose of the Diva was to array herself differently—­differently, but by no means with a less careful and well-considered attention to the result which was intended to be produced.