The servant took it to his master's room, found him still
in bed, though awake, and left it on the table by his bedside.
The Marchese Lamberto was, and had been all his life, far too busy a
man to be a late riser. Italians, indeed, who do nothing all day
long, are often very early risers. Their, climate leads them to be
so. They sleep during hours which are less available for being out
of doors--for your Italian idler passes very little of his day in
his own home--and they are up and out during the delicious hours of
the early morning. But the Marchese Lamberto, whose days were filled
with the multiplicity of occupations and affairs that have been
described in a previous chapter, was wont, at all times of the year,
to rise early.
On the present occasion, a sleepless night--and such nights, also,
were a new phenomenon in the Marchese's life--might have been a
reason for his being late. But he was not sleeping when his servant
took the letter in to him. The frame of mind in which he returned
from the theatre has been described. It lasted till he fell into a
feverish sleep, soon after going to his bed.
The dreams that made such sleep anything but rest may be easily
guessed. He was startled from them by the fancy that the kisses of
Bianca burned his lips; that it was a scorching flame, that he was
pressing in his arms, the contact of which turned all his blood to
liquid fire.
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