And as he pulled and pulled the unlucky Signor Giacomo began to rise to the hook and the line.
"I myself did not wish it," he said. "'Twas he made me go—'Come along,' said he. 'Why do you not wish to go? There will be no harm done. The thing is honest.' 'Yes!' I answered, 'so it seems to me also, but all this secrecy?' 'On account of the grandmother,' he replied. 'But then,' I asked, 'what sort of a figure shall you and I cut?' 'We are just a couple of simpletons!' he answered, with that way of his—honest, old-fashioned soul that he is,—that always gets round me. 'I will go,' said I."
Here he paused. Pasotti waited a while, and then gave the line a cautious jerk. "The trouble is," said he, "that the story leaked out at Castello."
"Yes, Sir, and I was sure it would. The family and the engineer might keep the secret, and of course I should never speak, but the priest and the sacristan would surely talk."
The priest? The sacristan? Ah! at last Pasotti understood. He staggered! He had not expected such a tremendous disclosure. He filled the unhappy Signor Giacomo's glass, and had little difficulty in getting all the particulars of the wedding out of him. Then he tried to find out what plans for the future the young people had formed, but in this he did not succeed. He began shuffling the cards with the intention of continuing the game, but Signor Giacomo looked at his watch, and found that it wanted only nine minutes to seven, at which hour he was in the habit of winding his clock. Three minutes in the street, two minutes on the stairs, and there remained only four minutes for leave-taking. "Reckon it out for yourself, most gracious Controller. It is as I say: there is no doubt about it."
Signora Bardorin, noticing this consultation, questioned her husband about it. Pasotti raised his hands to his mouth, and shouted into her face: "He wants to go and see his sweetheart!" "What nonsense! What nonsense!" poor Signor Giacomo exclaimed, turning all colours; and Signora Pasotti, having understood by a miracle, opened her mouth enormously wide, not knowing whether or no to believe her husband. "His sweetheart? Oh, what nonsense. It is foolish talk, is it not, Signor Giacomo? Of course you might have a sweetheart, I don't deny that. You're not old, but...!" Seeing that he really intended to be off, she tried to detain him, telling him she had some chestnuts from Venegono on the fire, which were nearly done, and begging him to accept some of them. But neither the chestnuts nor Pasotti's reproaches could persuade Signor Giacomo, and he departed with the spectre of the Imperial and Royal Commissary in his heart, harassed by unpleasant twinges of conscience, and a vague sense of dissatisfaction with himself, which he could not explain, and feeling instinctively that the perfidious servant's insolence was, after all, preferable to Pasotti's cajoleries.
As to the latter, his eyes shone even brighter than usual. He intended going to Cressogno at once. Being an indefatigable walker he expected to get there by eight o'clock. He was hugely pleased at the prospect of going to the Marchesa with his great discovery in pectore, of acting mysteriously, of dropping the most artful hints, one by one, and of obliging her to wrest the particulars from him. For his own gratification he was already preparing a gentle and soothing little speech to lay upon the wound of the imperturbable old dame, so that she might not be able to hide it, and that no one might complain of him, not even Franco. He went to the kitchen where he got them to light a lantern for him, for the night was very dark, and then he set out.
At the door he met his steward who was just coming in. The steward greeted him, and carried a large basket of fruit into the kitchen, and, having helped the maid put it away, he seated himself by the fire, and said placidly:
"Signora Teresa of Castello has just passed away."