She communicated the fact to
me during a little excursion we made together to the Pineta this
morning, after the ball. Now you know all about it," said Ludovico,
still in a hurry to get away.
"Not quite!" rejoined Fortini, quite imperturbably. "If you went to
the Pineta with her--(did anybody ever hear of such a mad thing?)--
and returned this morning, how can you want to go now to her house
to ask whether she is there?"
"Because, you very clever inquisitor, though I went to the Pineta
with her, I did not say that I had come back with her."
"The deuce you did not! Did another gentleman undertake the duty of
escorting the lady back to town? It is all exceedingly pleasant for
the Marchese Lamberto, upon my word!--oh, exceedingly!--and really a
foretaste to him of the joys to come, quite frankly offered to him
on the part of the lady!" sneered the old lawyer.
"Pshaw! how she may have come back, or with whom, I don't know, and
can't guess; and that is just what I am anxious to find out," said
Ludovico, in provoked impatience.
"I don't understand. Where did you part with the lady?" persisted
the lawyer, interested rather by the evident uneasiness of the
Marchese Ludovico, than by any care how and in what company Bianca
might have found her way back to the city.
"Well, that's just the curious part of the matter.
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