Bianca remained silent awhile, nodding her head up and down in a sort of reverie, and then said, rousing herself with a shake of her flowing curls as she looked up, “No; not quite that.  But I won’t say that it is impossible that if I am to make him love me, I may come to love him in the doing of it.  You see, amico mio, it is something new.  It is not the old weary mill-round.  He did not come to me with the set purpose of making love to me, as all those young fellows have done, and do, just because they have nothing else to amuse them; because it’s the fashion; because it’s a feather in their caps; because it’s the thing to have a prima donna for their mistress!  If the Marchese has fallen, or falls, in love with me, he does so because he cannot help himself, he does it in despite of himself; and that flatters a woman, Quinto.  Well, we shall see,” she added, after another pause:  “one thing, at all events.  I swear that there shall be nothing between me and the Marchese—­of—­the old sort.”

“It is wisely said, bambina mia.  That is the road which must lead, if any can, to the winning of your game.”

CHAPTER VI

At the Circolo

There was, at all events, one man at Ravenna who was entirely pleased and satisfied with the famous prima donna in all respects:  and this was Signor Ercole Stadione.

The Carnival campaign of La Lalli had been thus far brilliantly successful, and the Carnival was now about half over.  She “drew,” as the little impresario had prophesied she would, to his heart’s content.  It was many a year since there had been so successful a season at the theatre.  Each part she sang in was a more brilliant success than the last; and the public enthusiasm was such as enthusiasm on such subjects never is save in Italy.

In every respect, too, her ways and behaviour had been unexceptional.  Her attention was never distracted from her business by the visits of young men behind the scenes—­a torment which, during the reigns of other Divas, had often driven the poor little impresario, who dared not get rid of such intruders as he would have liked to do, almost wild.  Bianca would permit no visits of the kind.  She had never behaved herself to any of the young men in such sort as to cause any of those rivalries and jealousies which are sometimes apt to manifest themselves in hostile partisanship, when the Diva is on the boards—­another fruitful source of trouble to much-tried impresarios.

She had walked circumspectly and prudently in all respects—­a most moral and highly satisfactory Diva.

She was understood to receive no visitors at home—­at least, none of a compromising kind.  The Marchese Lamberto was often with her:  of course, naturally!  He was well known to be always a sort of second amateur manager:  neither the theatre nor little Ercole Stadione could go on without him.  And then the Marchese Lamberto was—­the Marchese Lamberto!  If he had chosen to sit by the bedside of any prima donna in Italy night after night, it would only have been supposed that he was giving her possets for the improvement of her voice.