Volume Ii Part 5 (2/2)

'This is the direct way to the house of old Drea, the fisherman, whose daughter is Dino's sweetheart. I have had the pleasure of seeing her: she is a very good, modest, innocent young girl. But there are other boatmen in Leghorn, signor Marchese; men to whom it might matter less in the end if you took to frequenting their houses every day.'

'I---- _Perdio!_ if I thought you knew what you were saying---- If I considered you anything but a meddlesome fool, I would----'

He raised his eyes, looking about him as if in search of some term strong enough to express his meaning, and it so chanced that his gaze fell upon the rubicund countenance of our old acquaintance of the Telegraph Office, the leather merchant, Sor Giovanni.

The first syllables which the young Marchese had spoken in an angry tone had reached that worthy tradesman's ears as he stood peaceably behind his own counter; but as his sense of wonder grew great with what it fed on, he had insensibly edged nearer and nearer to the scene of the encounter, until there he stood in his own doorway, both thumbs thrust into the band of his leather ap.r.o.n, his fat cheeks and gla.s.sy eyes fairly beaming with gratified curiosity.

A very little thing appealed to Gasparo's light-hearted sense of the ridiculous. He burst now into a fit of most unaffected laughter.

When he recovered himself he had lost the thread of his discourse.

'You may be sure of one thing, my man: the Countess Paula's is not the only house you have lost by _this_ morning's work,' he said dryly; and he turned on his heel and walked away whistling.

'By my blessed patron, San Giovanni! I should not like to be in _your_ shoes, friend Pietro,' observed the fat leather merchant in an awed voice, gazing up the street with profound respect at the Marchese Gasparo's receding figure. 'I should not choose to be in _your_ shoes, not I. _I_ know the young gentleman,--Livornese born and Livornese bred. It's no joke, let me tell you, to get on the wrong side of the account book with a Balbi.'

'Well, well,' said Valdez, half impatiently; 'it's only another example of the surprising contagion of folly. There were not fools enough in the world this morning apparently, and I have taken care to add one more to the number. 'Tis not a hanging matter; that's the best one can say for it. And so good-day to you, Sor Giovanni.'

'Wait a bit, wait a bit, now,' said solid Sor Giovanni soothingly. 'I just want to ask you a question or two now about Dino de Rossi. The Signor Marchese was speaking about young De Rossi, eh! eh! I have sharp ears, friend Pietro, and it seemed to me that there was talk of our Dino's falling into doubtful ways. That's bad, you know--very bad.

I had some thought of offering him a place in my business once; he is a good accountant, I am told, and would hardly expect much of a salary if one took him in when he was under a cloud, so to speak. I thought of it the day he left the Telegraph Office, but I waited--I waited to make him the offer. There's many a man has turned up his nose over the fresh loaf at breakfast-time who was ready to say his prayers over the crust at supper. It's all a question of supply and demand. One sees these things in the way of business.'

'Ay, there's small difficulty in seeing the duty one owes to oneself in the way of business,' said Valdez in his quiet way.

'E--e--eh, friend Pietro! _che volete_? Half the world is for sale, and the other half in p.a.w.n; you know the saying. But about this Dino, now. He is a friend of yours? You could answer for him, eh?'

'I answer for no man, my good Giovanni. And as for this young De Rossi; I have seen him, it is true. I knew his father; but----' He shrugged his shoulders significantly.

'See there, now! and I who counted upon your telling me more about him; for I know nothing against the young man myself, nothing but that he's a little over fond of the sound of his own voice, and for that matter he's young, he's young. He's at the age when every donkey loves his own bray. I don't know any other harm in him.'

'Harm in him? No. There's no harm in a weatherc.o.c.k if what you want to know is which way the wind is blowing,' said Valdez carelessly, and apparently quite absorbed in arranging the heavy folds of his dark circular cloak with the green lining. In reality his mind was full of a new plan for hastening their journey to Pisa. Clearly it would not do for Dino to show himself too often in his company.

Meanwhile Gasparo was hastening towards Drea's house, with just that amount of additional pleasure in the action as would naturally follow on the sense of successful opposition to somebody else's will. As for Dino,--Gasparo saw no necessity of thinking about Dino. In any case, Dino could not afford to marry, and even if he _did_,--for, in arguing a point in one's own favour, why not take both sides of the question?--even if he did marry, there were other girls in Leghorn beside this brown-eyed Italia. 'Little witch! I wonder if she guesses what she could make me do when she looks up at me with that innocent baby face of hers?' He sauntered down the steps with an expression of deepening enjoyment, a glance of expectation.

She was sitting in the old place, by the corner of the wall. Her sad face brightened a little as she looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw the young Marchese approaching her. She rose instantly, but she waited for him to speak.

'My little Italia! you look very pale. What is the matter? Has anything been troubling you?'

'I am quite well, sir, thank you. I am only tired.'

'And what has been tiring you, then? Too much pilgrimage, eh? Too many prayers in a cold church; is that not so?'

He looked at her more closely.

'You are quite sure the father has not been scolding you?'

'Oh no, sir, my father never scolds me.'

'Because I have brought something with me to restore good humour to a dozen angry fathers. See here, little one,'--it seemed at first sight a curious name to apply to that tall, slender girl with the sad eyes, but there was something childlike and unconscious about Italia's beauty which suggested the use of caressing diminutives--'see!'

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