"I will," said Laura, with a laugh. "How furious she will be! Of course it is Adele who gets these things."
"Of course. Five francs is quite enough."
And Laura, little knowing or guessing how it would be used against her, sent a five-franc note with her card in an envelope and addressed it. On the card she had written in pencil, "For Maria B., with best thanks."
"There is one other thing I would like to do," she said. "But I do not know whether you would approve. It would give me such satisfaction—you know I am only a woman, after all."
"What is that?" asked Ghisleri, "and why should you need my approval?"
"Only this. To-morrow, and perhaps the next day, when she is quite sure I must have received those letters, I would like to drive with you in an open carriage where we should be sure to meet Adele. I would give anything to see her face."
Ghisleri laughed. The womanly side of Laura's nature was becoming more apparent of late, and its manifestations pleased and surprised him. He thought Laura would hardly have seemed human if she had not wished to let Adele see how completely the attempt had failed which she had so ingeniously planned and carried out.
"If anything would make the town talk, that would," he answered. "The only way to manage it would be to get the Princess to go with you and then take me as—" He stopped short, rather awkwardly.
"I should rather go without her," said Laura, turning her face away to hide her amusement at the slip of the tongue of which he had been guilty.
In Rome, for Ghisleri to be seen driving with the Princess of Gerano and her daughter would have been almost equivalent to announcing his engagement to Laura.