Page:All the Year Round - Series 1 - Volume 8.djvu/126

 service. There is no question of either difficulty or danger. I simply wish to know something that I am sure you can tell me, or, at all events, can find out for me. If I am not wrong in flattering myself that the occasion will be not disagreeable to you, be, at an hour after the Ave Maria to-morrow evening, at the little door in the side alley to .the left of the palazzo. I do not think you can ;have forgotten the way to it.

Yours, as sincerely as ever, if you will, CECILIA.

(Superscribed) To the most Illustrious Cavalier, the Signore Vincenzo Carlini.

This missive brought our acquaintance of the Via dei Pilastri to the little side-door in the alley between the Palazzo Neri and the next house to it, punctually at the hour named. He had forgotten neither the unobtrusive little door, nor the dark narrow stair within it communi- cating directly with the lady's bower, and with no other part of the house a remarkable architectural arrangement still to be seen in existence in some of the noble homes in Flo- rence. In fact, it was the only part of the mansion with which the Cavalier Carlini was acqxiainted. Though of patrician birth, he was not of those who composed the inner circle which revolved immediately around the grand-ducal centre. And from the time that the intimacy which occasioned his visits to the postern had ceased, he had never either seen the interior of the Palazzo Neri, or spoken with its mistress. Now, as he betook himself to obey her summons, his meditations were more occu- pied with the terms in which the contessa's note was subscribed, than with the other contents of it ; and he reflected on them more with reference to that clinking of the bucket at the bottom of the well, of which he had spoken to Caterina Canacci, than in any point of view more nattering to the still beautiful Contessa Cecilia. The lady, on her side, was bent only on obtaining the informa- tion of which she was in search, and provided she got it, cared comparatively little what price she paid for it, in whatever kind df coin might be most acceptable to her old acquaintance. Under these circumstances they were not long in understanding each other. " Stuff and nonsense, my good friend !" replied the lady, to a declaration of Carlini, that he really could throw no light on the matter, but would endeavour to obtain the required information for the fact was, that he was anxious to gain time to think the business over a little 'before betraying a secret without knowing what use it was to be made to serve " stuff and nonsense, my good friend ! You can tell me what I want to know this instant, if you will. Don't I know that you and the duke hunt in couples ? Ah ! you think that we women know nothing of the proceedings of our lords and masters outside their own palace doors. Pooh ! pooh ! Jacopo Salviati has some love affair on his hands which utterly absorbs him ; some passion which has taken hold of him in good earnest. I want to know who is the object of it. A mere caprice! a curious whim ! But I will know, and I am quite sure that you can tell. me." " I think 1 can undertake to say," returned Carliui, " that Salviati has formed no attachment to any lady of your world. If there is anything of the sort, it must be a mere caprice for some .pretty face in quite another class." "Thank you for nothing, my most prudent Viucenzo. I could have told you as much as that. If anybody of our world was in question, I need not have asked you for information. I am very sure that it is some mere nobody ; but I have reasons for choosing to know who this nobody is. Will you tell me ; or must I find out from somebody else ?" " But, Signora mia, pardon me if I ask for what purpose the 'Contessa Cecilia dei Neri can possibly want to know the particulars of vulgar loves, that can in no wise have any interest for the world in which she lives ?" " Vulgar loves ! Cospetto ! "When such a man as the Duca di San Giuliano " " Why, carissima mia Signora, dukes will have their amusements like more vulgar mortals. Is it to your ladyship that one has to confess the fact?" " Amusements ! but I tell you Salviati is utterly absorbed by this new passion. He is lost, extinguished in his own sphere. Nothing but a veritable passion could have changed the man so totally as he is changed." " Why ! your ladyship knows how Salviati is situated at home. You know what the Duchess Veronica is." " We all know that, 1 think, pretty well ; but what in Heaven's name has the Duchess Veronica to do in the matter ?" " Why, gentilissima Signora Cecilia, the matter stands thus : if it were, perchance, the case that any one of your ladyship's friends had any special interest in our noble friend Ja- copo" and he glanced archly at the lady as he spoke "and if I could succeed in learning the whereabout of this little bourgeoise amourette, if amourette there be, why, all is fair in love ! Our amiable Tuscan dames understand and practise the law of the gentle science in all courtesy and mutual good feeling, and there would be no harm done ; but with the Duchess Veronica the case is different. She is not one of us .... Tuscans," he added, as his quick eye noted a slight curl on the lip of the lady ; " still less is she one of you. If the knowledge of the duke's peccadilloes should come to her ears, you know real mischief might be the result ; you would not make any such use as that, of the in- formation you are seeking ?" " Now, really, old friend, you ought to know me better than that," returned the Contessa ; into whose mind an idea had glided, rapid as the lightning flash, at the last words of Carlini. "The real truth is, then, that one of my friends, as you say" ^and she returned the arch look of intelligence with which he had previously ac- companied the same words " has a certain