That, then, it was in his power to have, and to have now,--now at
once. "Ahi, ahi!" he gnashed, through his ground teeth, closing his
eyes as the besieging vision postured itself in every seductive
guise before the suggestions of his fancy. Ah, God! what were
Cardinals, and Crosses, and place and station, or all the world
beside, to one half-hour in those arms?
Come what come might, he would see her first before going to the
Cardinal.
Snatching his hat, cane, and gloves, breakfastless as he was, he
hurried out of the house half mad with the passion that was
consuming him, yet with enough of the old thoughts about him to turn
away, on quitting his own door, from the direction of the Porta
Sisi, and to seek the goal of his thoughts by the most unfrequented
route he could find.
CHAPTER V
Bianca at Home
Quinto Lalli and Bianca were sitting together in the parlour of
their apartments in the Strada di Porta Sisi, that same Monday
morning just after the little pink note had been despatched to the
Marchese. Bianca was having her breakfast--a small quantity of black
coffee in a drinking-glass, brought, together with a roll of dry
bread, from the cafe. Old Lalli was not partaking of her repast,
having previously enjoyed a similar meal, with the addition of a
modicum of some horrible alcoholic mixture, called "rhume," poured
into the coffee at the cafe in the next street.
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