“Of course she was.  Would it be likely, I ask you, Signor Dottore, that the Marchese took the box for me?”

“And no doubt the Signorina Foscarelli was impressed by the actress in the same manner that you yourself were.”

“Of course she was, as any other decent young woman would have been; let alone being, as Paolina is, engaged to be married to the Marchese.”

“I have no doubt, Signora, that your remarks are perfectly just.  If the manners and conduct of the young women now-a-days were regulated a little more in conformity with the ideas of such persons of discretion as yourself, the world would be all the better for it.  But I don’t quite see how the behaviour of the prima donna on the stage could have had anything to do with the circumstance of the Marchese Ludovico’s engagement to the Signorina Foscarelli,” said the lawyer, with the most demure innocence of manner.

“You don’t see it, Signor Dottore.  Perhaps you were not in the theatre that night.  If you had been you would have seen it fast enough.  The way she went on, when the Marchese Ludovico was a-giving her a lovely nosegay of flowers—­hothouse flowers, if you please—­as big pretty near as this table; not just a-throwing them on to the stage the way I’ve seen ’em do it many a time at the Fenice; but putting them into her hand; and she, the minx a coming up to the box to take ’em before all the people as bold as brass.”

“Ah, I see?  The Signorina Foscarelli naturally did not quite like that,” said the lawyer, encouragingly.

“Like it!  Who would have liked it in her place, I ask you?  And that painted hussy a-going on they way she did; making such eyes at him, and smiling and a-pressing her hand to her bosom, that was just as naked as my face; and looking for all the world if she could have jumped right into the box, and eaten him up.  Like it, indeed!”

“No doubt it was provoking enough.  And your adopted daughter, Signora Steno, would not be the right-minded and well-brought-up girl I take her to be, if she did not express to you her disgust at such goings on,” said the sympathizing lawyer.

“You may say that.  She expressed it plain enough and not to me only, but to the Marchese himself well, when she saw him afterwards.  She let him know what she thought of the painted huzzy.  And she told him, too, some more of the truth.  She told him that the creature knew well enough what she was doing, or trying to do.  The way she looked straight up at my poor child in the box, where we were, was enough to make the blood curdle in your veins.  If ever I saw a face look hatred, it was the face of that woman when she looked up at our box.  She looked at the poor child as if she could have taken her heart’s blood.  She did.  Ah! bless your heart, she knew all about it.  Talk of the old Marchese, indeed.  Yes; the creature had set her mind upon being Marchesa di Castelmare.  Not a doubt of it; but it was the nephew she wanted, not the uncle; and she knew that my Paolina stood in the way of her scheming; and Paolina knew that she knew it.”