“What, in Heaven’s name, are you talking about?  I don’t know what you mean,” said the Marchese, with an angry irritability that was totally unlike his usual manner.  I sent for the lawyer; and you come and talk to me as if you wanted to play the doctor.”

“I assure you, Signor Marchese, I have not the slightest desire to play any part but my own.  And that I am perfectly ready to enter on.  I am ready to take your instructions, and will draw up the instrument to-morrow or the next day.  Thank God there is no cause for hurry.  And that is one of the advantages of arranging all testamentary dispositions while we are in health.  My own will, Signor Marchese, has been made these ten years.”

“What is that to me?  I may make my will ten years hence, and yet get it done in quite as good time as you have, Signor Fortini.  Pray allow me to judge for myself, when I think it right to make my will.  I have usually been able to manage my own affairs.”  He spoke with a degree of anger and petulance, jumping up from his chair, and taking a turn to the window and back again, which seemed to conquer the shivering fit from which he had been suffering.

“Manage your own affairs, Signor Marchese!  Who would dream of interfering with your management of them?  But did you not send for me to make your will?” said the lawyer, standing also.

“Send for you to make my will!  No. devil told you I wanted to make my will?  I said nothing about making my will.”

“I beg your pardon, Signor Marchese.  Perhaps I jumped at a conclusion over hastily.  I thought it a wise thing to do, and so imagined that you were going to do it;—­that’s all.  Let us say no more about it.  What commands have you then to give me?”

The Marchese took another turn across the room before replying; and the observant lawyer saw him, when his back was turned, pass his hand across his brow, with the action of one ill at ease.  Then resuming his seat, and motioning the lawyer to take a chair, he said—­

“If you will take a chair, Signor Giovacchino, I will tell you the business for which I have sent for you.  I have thought it my duty—­ family considerations—­in fact, I’ve been thinking on the subject for a long time—­in short, Signor Fortini, I am about to be married.”

“Whew—­w—­w!” whistled the lawyer, without the least attempt at concealing the extremity of his astonishment; and pushing back his chair a couple of feet, as he raised his head to stare into his companion’s face.

“And pray, Signor, what is there to be astonished at in such an intention?” said the Marchese, evidently wincing under the lawyer’s look.

“I beg your pardon, Signor Marchese, but—­the fact is—­one is always astonished at what one does not expect, you know.  You may depend on it, I am not one bit more astonished than every human being in Ravenna will be,” said the lawyer, looking hard at him.

“I am not aware, Signor Fortini, that I have to answer to any one save myself for the wisdom of my resolution,” said the Marchese, with a dignity more like his usual manner than he had yet spoken.