Still, as the months went on he would have been far better contented that his nephew should have been less often at the home of the two Venetians.  There were circumstances which made such visits especially inexpedient at the present time.  He knew that the young man was there much oftener than he judged to be in any way desirable; and the young man was there much oftener than his uncle knew.  The Marchese Lamberto was still very much persuaded that Paolina had not been led by his nephew into any false step of a seriously blamable nature.  But this was by no means any reason with the Marchese for approving of his nephew’s conduct.  The intercourse was altogether objectionable.  Talk was engendered,—­talk of an undesirable description; and this was excessively disagreeable to the Marchese, who had views for his nephew which might be seriously compromised by it.  A liaison of the kind, let the real nature of it be what it would, was in any case discreditable to his nephew and heir, and damaging more or less to the position which he wished to see the young man occupy in the town.  It was especially so, as has been said, at the present conjuncture.

Then, of course, it could not be otherwise than injurious to the girl.  She had, in some sort, been recommended to his care.  And it disturbed him much, that the conduct of his nephew should be the means of damaging her reputation.

Yet the Marchese, being a man of sense, knew very well that it would not have done any good to attempt to exercise any such authority over the young man as to forbid him to visit the lodging of the Venetians.  In the first place, such a step would, according to the notions and ways of looking at things of the society in which he lived, have placed him himself in a very ridiculous light;—­a danger which was not to be contemplated for an instant!  And, besides, the Marchese was very well aware that even if such an attempt did not cause his nephew to assume a position of open rebellion, it would only have the effect of making him do secretly and still more objectionably what he did, as it was, comparatively openly.

Comparatively, it must be said; for Ludovico was very much more frequently at the little house in the Strada di S. Eufemia than his uncle wotted of.

Not much more frequently, however, than was very well known by most of his contemporaries and fellow-habitues of the Circolo,—­by pretty well the whole of the “society” of Ravenna, that is to say.  And in the earlier part of the time in question,—­of the eight months, that is, from the March in which the young artist came to Ravenna, to the November in which Signor Ercole Stadione had made his journey to Milan there had been plenty of joking and raillery about Ludovico’s enthralment by the “bella Veneziana,” and many attempts to compete with him for so very attractive and desirable a “buona fortuna.”  But all this had only been at the beginning of the time.  Ludovico had taken