“I am sure I do not know how to thank you enough for all your kindness, Signor Marchese.  I do not know what we should have done without it,” said the Signora Orsola.

“For all your kindness!” repeated Paolina, with a look and an emphasis which, while it expressed her gratitude, left him at no loss to understand what part of all he had done for them had chiefly seemed to the pretty Paolina to merit her special thanks.

And these were the facts and the circumstances that had brought about a state of matters which left the Marchese Lamberto and the gossips of the Circolo in no doubt where the young Marchese Ludovico had gone to pass his evening, when his uncle sent for him to the club for the purpose which the reader wots of, and failed to find him there.

CHAPTER VI

The Beginning of Trouble

Nearly eight months had elapsed between that day when the Signora Orsola and the Signorina Paolina were installed in their new lodging and the day when the Marchese Ludovico was sitting in the more than modest little room over a miserable morsel of fire, with the two Venetians, when his uncle sent for him to give him the hint about any inconvenient gossip that might be whispered concerning the Signora Bianca Lalli, in accordance with the suggestion of the impresario.

The Marchese Lamberto had made the personal acquaintance of the young artist, who had been recommended to his protection very shortly after the day on which he had deputed his nephew to find a lodging for her; and he had instantly become aware that he had made a mistake in so doing;—­that he would certainly have deemed it better to take that care upon himself rather than have confided it to the young Marchese, if he had had the least idea what sort of person the Venetian artist was.  Nevertheless, be had been very strongly impressed with the propriety of Paolina’s manner and bearing, and after one or two more interviews, with the thorough modesty of her mind, and purity and dignity of her character.  And the Marchese was a man well competent to form a sound judgment of such matters.

He had no reason to think that the young man, his nephew, was as prudent, as steady, as little liable to the influence of female beauty, as cold, if you will, as he himself had been at the same age.  On the contrary, the character, which the Marchese Ludovico had made for himself in Ravenna, was a rather diametrically opposite one.  But he was strongly of opinion that in any enterprise of an illegitimate nature which his nephew might attempt with the young artist, he would have his trouble only for his pains.  And, of course, any enterprise of any other nature was wholly out of the question.