style="font-size:15px;"> "Poor Babbo!" exclaimed Giacinta. "It seems to me, Silvio," she added, severely, "that you have landed us all in a brutto impiccio. I certainly wish that I had never thought it would be good for your soul to go to mass last Christmas Eve!"
XI
Monsieur d'Antin did not immediately return to the house after having been an unobserved spectator of the parting scene between Bianca and her lover.
His presence in the ilex groves of the Villa Acorari that afternoon had been due to the merest chance – if, indeed, it were not one of those malicious tricks so frequently performed by the power that we call Fate or Providence, according to our own mood and the quality of the practical jokes played upon us.
He had been spending the day at Genzano, where he had breakfasted with a well-known Roman lady possessing an equally well-known villa lying buried in its oak and chestnut woods. The breakfast-party had been a pleasant one, and Monsieur d'Antin had enjoyed himself so much that he felt disinclined to return to Rome as early as he had at first intended. It would be agreeable, he thought, to drive from Genzano to the Villa Acorari, spend two or three hours there, and drive back to Rome, as he had been invited to do late in the evening, instead of returning by train.
Monsieur d'Antin had duly arrived at the Villa Acorari about four o'clock, only to find that the princess had gone to Rome for the day on business, and was not expected back until six. Donna Bianca, the servants told him, was at home, but she was in the gardens. Monsieur d'Antin was not so disappointed as he professed to be on hearing this intelligence. He would rest for a little while in the house, as it was still very hot – and – yes, an iced-lemonade would be very refreshing after his dusty drive from Genzano. Afterwards, perhaps, he would go into the gardens and see if he could find Donna Bianca.
A stroll through the ilex walks with Bianca would not be an unpleasing ending to his day among the Castelli Romani. Hitherto he had never been alone with her, and he was not sorry that chance had given him an opportunity of being so. The girl might be amusing when she was no longer under supervision. At any rate, she was attractive to look upon, and – oh, decidedly she sometimes had made him feel almost as though he were a young man again. That was always a pleasurable sensation, even if nothing could come of it. It was certainly a pity that he was not twenty years younger – nay, even ten years would be sufficient. Had he been so – who knows? – things might have been arranged. It would have been very suitable – very convenient in every way, and would have kept the Montefiano estates and titles in the family, so to speak. And Bianca was certainly a seductive child – there was no doubt about it. That mouth, that hair, and the lines of the figure just shaping themselves into maturity – Bah! they would make an older man than he feel young when he looked at them. Yes, it was certainly a pity. Jeanne, no doubt, would delay matters until – well, until those charms were too fully developed. That was the worst of these Italian girls – they were apt to develop too fast – to become too massive.
Monsieur d'Antin leaned back in an arm-chair in the cool, darkened salone of the Villa Acorari, and abandoned himself to these and various other reflections of a similar nature. He found the mental state a very pleasant one after his somewhat ample breakfast and hot drive. There was something, too, in the subdued light of the marble saloon, with its statues and groups of palms, and in the soothing sound of a fountain playing in the court-yard without, that gently stimulated such reflections.
At length, however, a striking clock had roused Monsieur d'Antin, and he sallied forth into the gardens, directed by a servant to the broad, box-bordered walk that led up the hill to the ilex groves where, as the man informed him, Donna Bianca usually went.
Probably, had it not been for that self-same shower of rain which had disturbed Bianca's meditations and caused her to seek the shelter of the avenue and the casino, he would have found her sitting in the open space near the fountains, where, as a matter of fact, Silvio Rossano had been watching her for some little time, wondering how he should best accost her. Silvio, concealed behind his tree, would certainly have seen Monsieur d'Antin approaching, and would have waited for another opportunity to accomplish his object. But, as usual, Puck or Providence must needs interfere and cause the rain to descend more heavily just as Monsieur d'Antin arrived at the fountains. Seeing that the avenue would afford him shelter he had entered it, and, after waiting for a few minutes, had bent his steps in the direction of the casino he observed at the farther end of it. The sound of voices coming from within the summer-house had caused him to stop and listen; and what he overheard, although he could not entirely follow the rapid Italian in which its occupants were speaking, was enough to tell him that Bianca Acorari was one of the speakers, that the other was a man, and that love was the topic of the conversation. Very quietly, and crouching down so as to be invisible from the window of the casino, Monsieur d'Antin had stepped past the half-closed door and concealed himself behind the little building. Through the open window he had been able from his hiding-place to hear every word that was said, and also to hear the sounds which certainly could not be called articulate.
Monsieur d'Antin's face, during the quarter of an hour he spent behind the casino, would have provided an interesting and instructive study to anybody who had been there to see it; it would also have made the fortune of any actor who could have reproduced its varied expressions. Astonishment, envy, lust, and malicious amusement, all were depicted upon his countenance in turn.
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