“Ah—­h—­h—­h!” sighed Bianca, shaking her head with an expression of disgust; “you understand nothing about it, Quinto; you can’t—­of course you can’t.  Gia,” she continued, after a pause of thought; “yes, I could take from her, poor fool, what she has; but could I, Bianca Lalli, take it and keep it for myself?  Ah me, it is weary work!  You might as well go and flaner, Quinto; for I must dress ready for the Marchese, in case he comes this morning.”

“He’ll come sure enough,” said Quinto; as he prepared to leave the room.

“It’s quite time, then, that I made myself ready to receive him,” returned Bianca, getting up from the sofa.

“Amo il zeffiro, perche a lui suo nome confido,” she sang, as she turned listlessly to go to her chamber; and despite what she had said—­and said with perfect sincerity to her adopted father—­it may be feared that the suo did not refer in the singer’s mind to the Marchese Lamberto.

Quinto Lalli was in the act of shutting the sitting-room door behind him, when the outer door of the apartment opened and Ludovico appeared in the doorway.  He was the very last man whom Quinto, with the ideas in his head which the above conversation with Bianca had put into it, would have wished to see there.  And perhaps there was something in his manner of meeting the visitor that enabled the Marchesino to perceive that he was not just then welcome.

“A thousand pardons,” he said, in an easy, careless manner, “for coming at so indiscreetly early an hour; but I could not refrain from just saying one word to the Signorina Bianca on her last night’s triumph, and I shall have no opportunity of seeing her later in the day.”

“Bianca,” called out Quinto, re-opening the door he was closing, and putting his head back into the room, “here’s the Marchese Ludovico wishes to speak to you.”  If the old man had not been a little bit out of humour with his adopted daughter he would probably have found some excuse for getting rid of the inopportune visitor.

“Pray let the Signor Marchese come in,” returned Bianca, turning back from the door of her bed-room, rather to the surprise of Signor Quinto;—­and Ludovico passed on into the sitting-room as the old man went out and shut the outer door behind him.

Bianca, as she had said, had been about to dress to receive the Marchese Lamberto; and Ludovico thus caught her (really. surprised this time) in her morning toilette.  But there was nothing in her dress to prevent her from being with propriety presentable, or, indeed, to prevent her from looking very charming in her dishabille.  Nevertheless, she did not intend, as we have seen, to present herself without further adornment to the Marchese Lamberto; and it was not without a certain feeling of bitterness at her heart that she said to herself, “What does it signify?” as she cast a glance at her looking-glass before stepping back into the sitting-room to receive her visitor.