“There—­it is done now, and she is already thinking what it will be like to dine alone with him this evening, and several thousand evenings hereafter.  Cynic, you say?  There are no more cynics.  They are all married, and must turn stoics if they can.  Let us be off.  No—­there is mass.  Well then, go down on your knees and pray for their souls, for they are in a bad case.  Marriage is Satan’s hot-house for poisonous weeds.  If anything can make a devil of an innocent girl it is marriage.  If anything can turn an honest man into a fiend it is matrimony.  Pray for them, poor creatures, if there is any available praying power left in you, after attending to the wants of your own soul, which, considering your matrimonial intentions, I should think very improbable.”

Gouache looked at his companion curiously, for Spicca’s virulence astonished him.  He was not at all intimate with the man and had never heard him express his views so clearly upon any subject.  Unlike most people, he was not in the least afraid of the melancholy Italian.

“From the way you talk,” he remarked, “one might almost imagine that you had been married yourself.”

Spicca looked at him with an odd expression, in which there was surprise as well as annoyance, and instead of making any answer, crossed himself and knelt down upon the marble pavement.  Gouache followed his example instinctively.

Half an hour later the crowd moved slowly out of the church, and those who had carriages waited in the huge vestibule while the long line of equipages moved up to the gates.  Gouache escaped from Spicca in the hope of getting a sight of Faustina before she drove away with her mother in one of the numerous Montevarchi coaches.  Sant’ Ilario and Corona were standing by one of the pillars, conversing in low tones.

“Montevarchi looked as though he knew it,” said Giovanni.

“What?” asked Corona, quietly.

“That his daughter is the future Princess Saracinesca.”

“It remains to be seen whether he is right.”

Gouache had been pushed by the crowd into one of the angles of the pilaster while the two speakers stood before one of the four pillars of which it was built up.  The words astonished him so much that he forced his way out until he could see the Princess of Sant’ Ilario’s beautiful profile dark against the bright light of the street.  She was still speaking, but he could no longer hear her voice, some acoustic peculiarity of the columns had in all probability been the means of conveying to him the fragment of conversation he had overheard.  Avoiding recognition, he slipped away through an opening in the throng and just succeeded in reaching the gate as the first of the Montevarchi carriages drew up.  The numerous members of the family were gathered on the edge of the crowd, and Gouache managed to speak a few words with Faustina.

The girl’s delicate face lighted up when she was conscious of his presence, and she turned her eyes lovingly to his.  They met often now in public, though San Giacinto did his best to keep them apart.