There was a jesuitism in this speech, which did not recommend it or its speaker to the Contessa Violante.  She would have been far better pleased by a more open reply to the confidence which she had half offered.  She only said in reply: 

“I am disposed to think, that such is the case in the matter which more nearly concerns us both, Signor Ludovico, than anything else.  But—­although we knew just now that we had to dance together, it was you who had to ask me, you know, and not I you.  Very little active power of influencing her own destiny is allowed to a girl; come, we had better attend now to the business in hand!”

There was nothing more, except such ordinary words between each other or the others dancing in the same set, as the dance itself led to, spoken by the Contessa and Ludovico.  The former declined all other invitations to dance, and went home at the earliest moment she could induce her aunt to do so.

There was much talk going on in all parts of the room as to the announced coming of the great singer on the morrow.  The young men settled together the last details of their plans for the triumphal entry of the “Diva;” and the ladies were by no means uninterested in hearing all that their cavaliers had to tell them on this subject.  Much was said, too, about the qualities of La Lalli both as a singer and as a woman.  Everybody agreed that she was admirable in the first respect; and there was not a man there, who had not some anecdote to tell, which he had heard from the very best authority, tending to set forth the rare perfection of her beauty, and the wonderful power of fascination she exercised on all who came near her.

She was to arrive quite early on the morrow.  It was understood that she purposed passing the previous night,—­that night in short, which those who were discussing her were spending at the Castelmare ball, at the little town of Bagnacavallo, a few miles only from Ravenna.  Such a scheme looked,—­or would have looked in the eyes of any other people than Italians,—­rather ridiculously like the ways and fashions of royal progresses, and state entries into cities.  But the Ravenna admirers of the coming “Diva” neither saw nor suspected the slightest absurdity; and it is to be supposed that La Lalli knew all the importance of first impressions, and that she did not choose to show herself to her new worshippers for the first time under all the disadvantages of arriving tired and dusty from a long journey.

CHAPTER XII

The Arrival of the “Diva”

On the morrow of the Marchese’s ball was the great day of the arrival of the divine songstress.  And it was as lovely a day for the gala doings, which had been arranged in honour of the occasion, as could be desired.  A brilliant sun in a cloudless sky made the afternoon quite warm and genial, despite the general cold.  An Italian sun can do this.  Where he shines not it may be freezing.  As soon as he has made his somewhat precipitous exit from the hard blue sky, the temperature will suddenly fall some ten degrees or more.  But as long as he is in glory overhead, it is summer in the midst of winter.