“The Marchese Lamberto did not look to me as if he was tired or bored,” said Violante, thoughtfully.  “I hope he is not.  Here comes that absurd animal Leandro again.  Did you ever see anything so outrageously ridiculous?”

Ludovico and the Contessa then rose from their seats, and Violante taking his arm drew him in the direction in which the Marchese Lamberto had led the white satin domino.

CHAPTER IX

Paolina’s Return to the City

There remained now but one day more of that Carnival, which remained memorable for many years afterwards in Ravenna, for the terrible catastrophe that marked its conclusion.

All that these people, whose passions, and hopes, and fears have been laid open to the reader, were doing during those Carnival weeks was gradually leading up, after the manner of human acts, to the terrible event which rounded off the action with such fatal completeness.  And the catastrophe was now at hand.

During the reception at the Castelmare palace on that night of the last day of Carnival but one, the white domino, whom Ludovico had rightly supposed to be Bianca—­a guess which had been shared by many other persons in the room—­had pretty exclusively occupied the attention of the Marchese Lamberto.  And it must be supposed that the resolution was then taken between them which led to the summons of Signor Fortini, the family lawyer, to the palazzo on the first day of Lent, as was related in the first book of this narrative.  It was on the morning of Ash Wednesday, it will be remembered, that the lawyer had received from the Marchese the formal communication of his intention to marry the Signorina Bianca Lalli.

The reader knows, also, that what took place in the interval between the night of the reception at the Palazzo Castelmare and the morning of the first day in Lent was not calculated, as might have been supposed, to assist in bringing the mind of the Marchese to a final determination to that effect.  The terrible degree to which his jealousy and anger had been excited on the night of the ball at the Circolo by Ludovico and Bianca will also not have been forgotten.  The conduct which had awakened that jealousy was, in a great measure, if not entirely, innocent on the part of both the offenders, as the reader will also, no doubt, remember.  The similarity of the costume adopted by the Marchesino and Bianca was entirely accidental.  And this, trifling as the circumstance may seem, had contributed very materially to arouse the Marchese’s wrath and jealous agony.  Bianca, perhaps, under the circumstances, ought not to have danced as frequently as she did with the Marchesino.  She at least knew that the Marchese Lamberto had already conceived the most torturing jealousy of his nephew.  Ludovico, on his part, was of course utterly unconscious that he was giving his uncle the remotest cause for umbrage by his attentions to the successful Diva.