On the way he laid out the sketch of one of those imaginary dialogues which never by any possibility take place. He started by fancying himself, after some delay, perhaps, admitted to the drawing-room of the famous prima donna. She might or might not be there. At all events, he would politely introduce himself by name; and then he went on to picture the succeeding talk, ending in two ways, one conceiving her to make fatal admissions against herself, the other supposing her to contemptuously defy him, and laugh all his crafty advances to scorn.
The driver of the hansom shot round the angle of the square. But when he was within a few doors of the house where Madam Guiscardini resided, he perceived that there was already drawn up in front of the curb facing the portico another and far more important vehicle than his own—a splendidly appointed brougham, the gray horses attached to which were handsomely caparisoned in gleaming silver harness. The graceful animals stood perfectly still, except when they half-impatiently threw up their heads, jingling their elegant appointments, or pawed the ground, as if anxious to start off.
The cabman drove past the vehicle a few feet, and then drew up, to wait further orders.
It instantly struck the young lawyer that this might be Madam Guiscardini’s brougham, and that probably she was going out. He had heard that she never attended the theater in the morning when she was to perform in the evening, so she might not be going to the opera-house; but, at all events, she was in all likelihood on the point of taking a drive somewhere. He determined to wait for some moments.
“Turn the other way—right round—and then stop for a while,” he said to the cabman. “If I should jump out very suddenly, and go into that house, do not take any notice, but wait quietly here until I come back.”
“All right, sir,” said cabby, obeying the first part of his instructions.
Frank thus faced the brougham, which he had seen in dashing past, and could see the street-door, at present closed.
Had Lucia Guiscardini happened to be in her dining-room, drawing-room, or bedroom, all of which looked out on the square, she might possibly have descried the mysterious waiting vehicle standing opposite, or nearly opposite, to her house, and, seeing the watchful figure with the dark-bearded, thoughtful face, might by accident have taken an alarm, and so countermanding her orders for the drive, and denying herself on the score of a fit of indisposition to any stranger inquiring for her, have temporarily escaped a dangerous interview.
But, unfortunately for herself, madam was in her dressing-room, a dainty apartment behind her bedroom, and only separated from it by silken and lace curtains. She was occupied in three different ways—completing her exquisite toilet, scolding and snarling at her French maid, and cooing over a tangled skein of floss silk, from which peered forth an infinitesimal black snout and two bright, glittering brown eyes.
Dress was a reigning passion with Lucia, and this day she was doubly absorbed, in spite of the racking state of her mind consequent upon the daring criminal step she had taken the night before.