Malatesta gave a low whistle.
"Enrica Guinigi! Is not that the marchesa's niece?" asked Orsetti; "a pretty, fair-faced girl I see driving with her aunt on the ramparts sometimes?"
"The same," answered Malatesta. "But what, in the name of all the devils, could Marescotti know of her? No one has ever spoken to her."
Baldassare now leaned forward and listened; the name of Enrica woke
him from his sleep. He hardly dared to join the circle formed round
Franchi, for Franchi always snubbed him, and called him "Young
Galipots," when Trenta was absent.
"Perhaps Marescotti was the archangel Gabriel himself," said
Malatesta, with a leer.
"But answer my question," insisted Orsetti, who, as an avowed suitor of Lucca maidens had their honor and good name at heart. "Don't be a fool, but tell me what you know. This idle story, involving the reputation of a young girl, is shameful. I protest against it!"
"Do you?" sneered Orazio, leaning back, and pulling at his sandy mustache. "That is because you know nothing about it. This Sainte Vierge has already been much talked about—first, with Nobili, who lives opposite—when ma tante was sleeping. Then she spent a day with several men upon the Guinigi Tower, an elegant retirement among the crows. After that old Trenta offered her formally in marriage to Marescotti."
"What!—After the Guinigi Tower?" put in Malatesta. "Of course
Marescotti refused her?"
"'Refused her, of course, with thanks.' So says the sonnet." Orazio went on to say all this in a calm, tranquil way, casting the bread of scandal on social waters as he puffed at his cigar. "It is very prettily rhymed—the sonnet—I have read it. The young Madonna is warmly painted. Now, why did Marescotti refuse to marry her? That is what I want to know." And Franchi looked round upon his audience with a glance of gratified malice.
"Even in Lucca!—even in Lucca!" Malatesta clapped his hands and chuckled until he almost choked. "Laus Veneri!—the mighty goddess!—She has reared an altar even here in this benighted city. I was a skeptic, but a Paphian miracle has converted me. I must drink a punch in honor of the great goddess."