“Suppose he is the dark horse; suppose she is his mistress all this time; and he takes care to keep her all to himself,” said Manutoli.

“What, lo zio.  Bah!  I should have thought that you knew him better than that, Manutoli.  To him a woman is a voice, and nothing else.  If the same sounds could be got out of a flute or a fiddle he would like it much better, and think it far more convenient.  I don’t think my uncle Lamberto ever knew whether a woman was pretty or plain.  I wish to heaven he would get caught for once in his life; it would suit my book very well.  He would have less leisure to think of other things.”

The fact was that the Marchese had, in truth, had less leisure to think of those other things from which Ludovico desired that his attention should be drawn away.  His visits to the Via Santa Eufemia had been more frequent than ever; his visits to the Marchesa Anna Lanfredi and her niece rarer than ever.  And he had received neither lectures nor remonstrances for a long time past.  In truth, the Marchese had his mind too full of other matters to think much of his nephew’s affairs or doings.  And, besides that, there was a quite new and hitherto unknown feeling in the heart of the Marchese Lamberto which made him shrink from any such encounter with his nephew, as remonstrances respecting his conduct with regard to Paolina would have occasioned;—­a feeling which made it seem to him that he was the watched instead of the watcher; that suggested to him the fear that the first word he might utter upon the subject would be met by references to doings of his own.

An utterly unfounded fear.  But so it is that conscience doth make cowards of us all.

CHAPTER VII

Extremes Meet

The Marchese was uneasy in the presence of his nephew.  But the fact was that he was uneasy and unhappy altogether, and at all times.  From being one of the most placidly cheerful and contented of men, he was becoming nervous, anxious, and restless.  People began to remark that the Marchese was beginning to look older.  They had said for years past that he had not grown a day older in the last ten years.  But this winter there was a change in him!

It did not occur to anybody to connect any change that was observable either in the Marchese’s manner or in his appearance, with the frequency of his visits to the quartiere inhabited by the prima donna and Signor Quinto Lalli, in the Strada di Porta Sisi.  The ordinary habits of the Marchese, and his functions as a patron of the theatre and amateur impresario were so well known and understood, that it seemed perfectly natural to all Ravenna that he should be very frequently with the prima donna.  And on the other hand, the almost monastic regularity of his life, and his character of long standing in such respects, would have made the notion that he had any idea of flirting with the singer appear utterly absurd and inadmissible to every man, woman, or child in the city, if it had ever come into anybody’s head.