Brigitta turns aside, puts her tongue in her cheek, and glances maliciously at Carlotta, who nods.
"How do you know how your master is made, Cassandra mia?" asks
Brigitta, looking round, with a short laugh.
"Because I have eyes in my head," replies Cassandra, defiantly. "My master, the padrone of the Pelican Hotel, is not a man one sees every day in the week!"
A tall priest now appears from within the church, coming down the nave, in company with a rosy-faced old gentleman, who, although using a stick, walks briskly and firmly. He has a calm and pleasant face, and his hair, which lies in neat little curls upon his forehead, is as white as snow. One moment the rosy old gentleman talks eagerly with the priest; the next he sinks upon his knees on the pavement, and murmurs prayers at a side altar. He does this so abruptly that the tall priest stumbles over him. There are many apologies, and many bows. Then the old gentleman rises, dusts his clothes carefully with a white handkerchief, and walks on, talking eagerly as before. Both he and the priest bend low to the high altar, dip their fingers in the holy-water, cross themselves, bend again to the altar, turning right and left—before leaving the cathedral.
"That's Fra Pacifico," cries Carlotta, greatly excited—"Fra Pacifico, the Marchesa Guinigi's chaplain. He's come down from Corellia for the festival."—Carlotta is proud to show that she knows somebody, as well as Cassandra. "When he is in Lucca, Fra Pacifico passes my shop every morning to say mass in the marchesa's private chapel. He knows all her sins."
"And the old gentleman with him," puts in Cassandra, twitching her hook nose, "is old Trenta—Cesare Trenta, the cavaliere. Bless his dear old face! The duke loved him well. He was chamberlain at the palace. He's a gentleman all over, is Cavaliere Trenta. There—there. Look!"—and she points eagerly—"that's the Red count, Count Marescotti, the republican."
Cassandra lowers her voice, afraid to be overheard, and fixes her eyes on a man whose every feature and gesture proclaimed him an aristocrat.
Excited by the grandeur of the service, Marescotti's usually pale face is suffused with color; his large black eyes shine with inner lights. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, he walks through the atrium, straight down the marble steps, into the piazza. As he passes the three women they draw back against the wall. There is a dignity about Marescotti that involuntarily awes them.
"That's the man for the people!"—Cassandra still speaks under her breath.—"He'll give us a republic yet."
Following close on Count Marescotti comes Count Nobili. There are ease and conscious strength and freedom in his every movement. He pauses for a moment on the uppermost step under the central arch of the atrium and gazes round. The sun strikes upon his fresh-complexioned face and lights up his fair hair and restless eyes.—It is clear to see no care has yet troubled that curly head of his.—Nobili is closely followed by a lady of mature age, dark, thin, and sharp-featured. She has a glass in her eye, with which she peers at every thing and everybody. This is the Marchesa Boccarini. She is followed by her three daughters; two of them of no special attraction, but the youngest, Nera, dark and strikingly handsome. These three young ladies, all matrimonially inclined, but Nera specially, had carefully watched the instant when Nobili left his seat. Then they had followed him closely. It was intended that he should escort them home. Nera has already decided what she will say to him touching the Orsetti ball that evening and the cotillon, which she means to dance with him if she can. But Nobili, with whom they come up under the portico, merely responds to their salutation with a low bow, raises his hat, and stands aside to make way for them. He does not even offer to hand them to their carriage. They pass, and are gone.