"No, indeed. I am very glad you have told me. I shall be more careful in future."
"It will make very little difference. You know the world as well as I do, and better. People have begun to say that you go to see Lady Herbert every day—they will still say it after you have not been to her house for months."
"Yes. That is the way the world talks. I hope this will not reach her ears—though I suppose it ultimately will. Some dear kind friend will go and tell her in confidence, and give her good advice."
"Probably. That is generally the way. Only, as she is in deep mourning and receives very few people, it may be a little longer than usual in such cases before the affectionate friend gets at her. Then, too, the idea that she is a jettatrice will keep many of her old acquaintances away. You know how seriously they take those things here."
It will be remembered that both Maddalena and Ghisleri were from the north of Italy, where the superstition about the evil eye is much less general amongst the upper classes than in Rome and the south. Pietro himself had not the slightest belief in it, and he had so often laughed at it in conversation with the Contessa that if she had ever had any vague tendency to put faith in the jettatura, it had completely disappeared. But both of them were thoroughly familiar with the society in which they lived, and understood the position in which Laura was placed.
"I will help you as much as I can," said Maddalena, "though I cannot do much. At all events, I can laugh at the whole thing and show that I do not believe in it. But as for the rest,—placed as I am, I can hardly make an intimate friend of Lady Herbert Arden, much as I like her."
She spoke sadly and a little bitterly. Ghisleri made no reference to the last remark when he answered her.
"I shall be very sincerely grateful for anything you can do to help the wife of my old friend," he said. "And I think you can do a good deal. You have great influence in the gay set—and that means the people who talk the most—Donna Adele, Donna Maria Boccapaduli, the Marchesa di San Giacinto, and all the rest, who are, more or less, your intimates. It is very good of you to help me—Lady Herbert needs all the help she can get. Spicca is a useful man, too. If he can be prevailed upon to say something particularly witty at the right moment, it will do good."
"I rarely see him," said Maddalena. "He does not like me, I believe."
"He admires you, at all events," answered Ghisleri. "I have heard him talk about your beauty in the most enthusiastic way, and he is rarely enthusiastic about anything."