"
"Thanks, Signor Pietro; but I will look in about the beginning of
your office hours to-morrow morning. I feel as if I should be able
to think of nothing else but this terrible business for some time to
come. Felice sera."
And so the old lawyer went off to call upon his client, the Marchese
Lamberto, truly dreading the interview, and yet not without a
certain degree of satisfaction, and a kind of I-told-you-so feeling
in the prospect of announcing to the unhappy Marchese those terrible
first-fruits of the disastrous purpose, in condemnation of which the
lawyer had spoken so strongly a few hours ago.
CHAPTER IV
The Marchese hears the Ill News
Signor Fortini judged rightly, when he said that he thought it
probable that the Marchese Lamberto had not quitted his library,
from the time when he had left him there, after the conversation, in
which the Marchese had avowed his purpose with regard to La Bianca.
The shrewd lawyer had well understood, that the final decision with
regard to such a purpose, and the definite announcement of it, which
the Marchese had made to him, his lawyer, were not likely to dispose
such a man to meet the eyes of his fellow-citizens. Had Fortini
known that the Marchese had been made aware of the purposed
excursion of his nephew with the singer--as the reader knows that he
had been by the officious meddling of the Conte Leandro,--it might
have seemed strange that he should have chosen just that day and
hour for the declaration of his intention.
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