her head, and disappeared round the angle of the court-yard.
"She has dropped something, Silvio," Giacinta said. "Had you not better go after her? It is a letter, I think."
"Of course!" Silvio answered, a little hastily. "I will catch up with her and give it to her," and he turned and ran down the staircase as he spoke.
Giacinta, leaning over the balustrade, saw him pick up the piece of paper. Then he crumpled it up and thrust it into his pocket.
"That," said Giacinta to herself, "was not prudent of Silvio. One does not crumple up a letter and pocket it if one is about to restore it to its owner, unless one's pocket is its proper destination."
Nevertheless, Silvio continued to pursue the lady, and three or four minutes or more elapsed before he rejoined his sister.
"Well," Giacinta observed, tranquilly. "You gave her back her letter?"
"It was not a letter," said Silvio, "it was only a – a memorandum – written on a scrap of paper. A thing of no importance, Giacinta."
"I am glad it was of no importance," returned Giacinta, not caring to press her original question. "Do you know who she is?" she added.
"I think," answered Silvio, carelessly, "that she must be the lady who comes to teach the princess's daughter."
"Step-daughter," corrected Giacinta, dryly.
"Of course – step-daughter – I had forgotten. Do you know, Giacinta," he continued, "that we shall be very late for breakfast?"
It was a silent affair, that breakfast. The professor had been occupied the whole of the morning in correcting the proofs of a new scientific treatise, and he had even brought to the table some diagrams which he proceeded to study between the courses. Silvio's handsome face wore a thoughtful and worried expression, and Giacinta was engrossed with her own reflections.
Presently Professor Rossano broke the silence. He was eating asparagus, and it is not easy to eat asparagus and verify diagrams at the same time.
"Silvio," he said, mildly, "may one ask whether it is true that you have fallen in love?"
Silvio started, and looked at his father with amazement. Then he recovered himself.
"One may ask it, certainly," he replied, "but – "
"But one should not ask indiscreet questions, eh?" continued the professor. "Well, falling in love is a disease like any other – infectious in the first stage – after that, contagious – decidedly contagious."
Silvio laughed a little nervously. "And in the last stage?" he asked.
"Oh, in the last stage one – peels. H one does not, the affair is serious. I met Giacomelli yesterday – your maestro. He said to me: 'Senator, our excellent Silvio is in love. I am convinced that he is in love. It is a thousand pities; because, when one is in love, one is apt to take false measurements; and for an engineer to take false measurements is a bad thing!' That is what Giacomelli said to me in Piazza Colonna yesterday afternoon."
Silvio looked evidently relieved.
"And may one ask whom I am supposed to be in love with?" he demanded.
"As to that," observed the professor, dryly, "you probably know best. All that I would suggest is, that you do not allow the malady to become too far advanced in the second stage – unless" – and here he glanced at Giacinta – "well, unless you are quite sure that you will peel." And with a quiet chuckle he turned to his diagrams again.
Silvio caught his sister's eyes fixed upon him. Giacinta had perhaps not entirely understood her father's metaphors, but it was very clear to her that others had noticed the change she had observed in Silvio. He had evidently been less attentive to his work than was his wont; and the eminent engineer under whom he had studied and made a name for himself, becoming aware of the fact, had unconsciously divined the true cause of it. The Commendatore Giacomelli had doubtless spoken in jest to the father of his favorite pupil, thinking that a parental hint might be useful in helping Silvio to return to his former diligence. Giacinta knew her father's good-natured cynicism well enough, and felt certain that, though treating the matter as a joke, he had intended to let Silvio know that his superiors had noticed some falling off in his work.
But Giacinta was, unfortunately, only too sure that the right nail had been hit on the head, even if the blow had fallen accidentally. She did not feel uneasy lest her father should discover the fact, nor, if he did so, that he would make any efforts to discover the quarter in which Silvio's affections were engaged. The professor lived a life very much of his own, and his nature was a singularly detached one. His attitude towards the world was that of a quiet and not inappreciative spectator of a high comedy. His interests were centred in the stage, and also in the stage-machinery, and he was always ready to be amused or to sympathize as the case might be, in the passing scenes which that complex machinery produced. Giacinta often wondered whether her father ever thought of the possibility of her marriage, or ever considered that her position as an only daughter was somewhat a lonely one. He had never made the faintest allusion to the subject to her; but she was sure that if she were suddenly to announce to him that she was going to marry, he would receive the information placidly enough, and, when once he had satisfied himself that she had chosen wisely, would think no more about the matter. And it would be the same thing as far as Silvio was concerned – only, in Silvio's case, if Donna Bianca Acorari were the object on which he had set his affections, Giacinta was certain that the professor would not consider the choice a wise one. He had a great dislike to anything in the nature of social unpleasantness, as have many clever people who live in a detached atmosphere of their own. In print, or in a lecture-room, he could hit hard enough, and appeared to be utterly indifferent as to how many enemies he made, or how many pet theories he exploded by a logic which was at times irritatingly humorous and at times severely caustic. But, apart from his pen and his conferences, the Senator Rossano was merely a placid individual, slightly past middle age, with a beard inclining to gray, and a broad, intellectual forehead from under which a pair of keen, brown eyes looked upon life good-naturedly enough. Perhaps the greatest charm about Professor Rossano was his genuine simplicity – the simplicity which is occasionally, but by no means always, the accompaniment of intellectual power, and the possession of which usually denotes that power to be of a very high order. This simplicity deceived others not infrequently, but it never deceived him; on the contrary, it was perpetually adding to his knowledge, scientific and otherwise.
Both Professor Rossano's children had inherited something of their father's nature, but Silvio had inherited it in a more complex way, perhaps, than his sister. In him the scientific tendency had shown itself in the more practical form of a love for the purely mechanical and utilitarian. Nevertheless, he had the same detached nature, the same facility for regarding life from the objective point of view, as his father, and the same good-humored if slightly cynical disposition. Of the two, Giacinta was probably the more completely practical, and had, perhaps, the harder disposition. Nor was this unnatural; for their mother had died when Silvio was a child between five and six years old, and Giacinta, being then nearly eight, had speedily acquired a certain sense of responsibility, which, owing to the professor's absorption in his scientific researches, largely increased as time went on. But Giacinta, also, had her full share of good-nature and sympathy, though she was incapable of, as it were, holding herself mentally aloof from the world around her as did her father and, to a certain degree, her brother.
Breakfast over, Professor Rossano soon retired again to the correction of his proofs, leaving Giacinta and Silvio alone together. For a short time neither of them spoke, and Silvio apparently devoted his whole attention to the proper roasting of the end of a "Verginia" cigar in the flame of a candle. Giacinta meditated on the possible contents of the
