“Wait a little longer,” answered Faustina, in an imploring tone.  “Wait until the suit is decided.”

“In order to let San Giacinto get even more influence than he has now?  It would be a mistake—­you almost said so yourself a moment ago.  Besides, the suit may for years.”

“It will not last a fortnight.”

“Poor Sant’ Ilario!” exclaimed Gouache.  “Does everybody know about it?”

“I suppose so.  But nobody speaks of it.  We all feel dreadfully about it, except my father and San Giacinto and Flavia.”

“If he is in a good humour this is the very time to go to him.”

“Please, please do not insist!” Faustina was evidently very much in earnest.  With the instinct of a very young woman, she clung to the half happiness of the present which was so much greater than anything she had known before in her life.  But Gouache would not be satisfied.

“I must know the worst,” he said again, as they parted.

“But this is so much, better than the worst,” answered Faustina, sadly.

“Who risks nothing, wins nothing,” retorted the young man with a bright smile.

In spite of his hopefulness, however, he had received a severe shock on hearing the news of the intended match with young Frangipani.  He had certainly never expected to find himself the rival of such a suitor, and his sense of possibility, if man may be said to possess such a faculty, was staggered by the idea.  He suddenly awakened to a true understanding of his position in Roman society, and when he contemplated his discovery in all its bearings, his nerve almost forsook him.  When he remembered his childhood, his youth, and the circumstances in which he had lived up to a recent time, he found it hard to realise that he was trying to marry such a girl, in spite of her family and in opposition to such a man as was now brought forward as a match for her.  It was not in his nature, however, to be discouraged in the face of difficulties.  He was like a brave man who has received a stunning blow, but who continues to fight until he has gradually regained his position.  Gouache could no more have relinquished Faustina than he could have abandoned a half-finished picture in which he believed, any more than he had given up the attempt to break away the stones at the Vigna Santucci after he had received the bullet in his shoulder.  He had acquired his position in life by indomitable perseverance and hopefulness, and those qualities would not now fail him, in one of the most critical situations through which he had ever passed.  In spite of Faustina’s warning and, to some extent, in spite of his own better judgment, he determined to face the old prince at once and to ask him boldly for his daughter.