And gathering in her skirts, she set bravely forward, and made the transit without mishap.  The priest and Emilia, gathering in their skirts, made it after her.

She paused on the other side, and looked back, smiling.

“Since you have discovered so efficacious a means of cutting short the distance between our places of abode,” she said, “I hope you will not fail to profit by it whenever you may have occasion—­on Thursday, for example.”

“Thank you very much,” said Peter.

“Of course,” she went on, “we may all die of our wetting yet.  It would perhaps show a neighbourly interest if you were to come up to-morrow, and take our news.  Come at four o’clock; and if we’re alive . . . you shall have another pinch of snuff,” she promised, laughing.

“I adore you,” said Peter, under his breath.  “I’ll come with great pleasure,” he said aloud.

“Marietta,” he observed, that evening, as he dined, “I would have you to know that the Aco is bridged.  Hence, there is one symbol the fewer in Lombardy.  But why does—­you mustn’t mind the Ollendorfian form of my enquiry—­why does the chaplain of the Duchessa wear red stockings?”

“The chaplain of the Duchessa—?” repeated Marietta, wrinkling up her brow.

“Ang—­of the Duchessa di Santangiolo.  He wore red stockings, and shoes with silver buckles.  Do you think that’s precisely decorous—­don’t you think it ’s the least bit light-minded—­in an ecclesiastic?”

“He—?  Who—?” questioned Marietta.

“But the chaplain of the Duchessa—­when he was here this afternoon.”

“The chaplain of the Duchessa!” exclaimed Marietta.  “Here this afternoon?  The chaplain of the Duchessa was not here this afternoon.  His Eminence the Lord Prince Cardinal Udeschini was here this afternoon.”

“What!” gasped Peter.

“Ang,” said Marietta.

“That was Cardinal Udeschini—­that little harmless-looking, sweet-faced old man!” Peter wondered.

“Sicuro—­the uncle of the Duca,” said she.

“Good heavens!” sighed he.  “And I allowed myself to hobnob with him like a boon-companion.”

“Gia,” said she.

“You need n’t rub it in,” said he.  “For the matter of that, you yourself entertained him in your kitchen.”

“Scusi?” said she.

“Ah, well—­it was probably for the best,” he concluded.  “I daresay I should n’t have behaved much better if I had known.”

“It was his coming which saved this house from being struck by lightning,” announced Marietta.

“Oh—?  Was it?” exclaimed Peter.

“Yes, Signorino.  The lightning would never strike a house that the Lord Prince Cardinal was in.”

“I see—­it would n’t venture—­it would n’t presume.  Did—­did it strike all the houses that the Lord Prince Cardinal was n’t in?”

“I do not think so, Signorino.  Ma non fa niente.  It was a terrible storm—­terrible, terrible.  The lightning was going to strike this house, when the Lord Prince Cardinal arrived.”