"To the room reserved for your lordship's toilet," replied the man.
"Quick! send my varlets up," cried the master; "I will but shake off this dust and go down."
"Better appear as becomes you, my noble lord," replied Antonio; "there is a splendid company below--indeed, there always is when the countess receives her guests. Your apparel is all put forth and ready. To dress will but take you a few minutes."
"Well, be it so," said Lorenzo; "bring me those lights, my good Antonio;" and he walked straight to the door of the dressing-room, leaving his mother's portrait and the poison on the table. He remembered it once while going down the stairs after dressing, but there was too much eagerness in his heart for him to return to take it then, and from that moment events and--more engrossing still--feelings hurried on so rapidly, he forgot entirely his purpose of going back for the portrait at an after period.
The entrance of the young prefect into his wife's splendid saloons caused no slight movement among the many guests there present. His noble and dignified carriage, the strange air of command in one so young--an air of command obtained as much by sorrows endured, and a manly struggle against despair, as by the habit of authority--impressed all the strangers in the room with a feeling going somewhat beyond mere respect. But there was one there present whose feelings cannot be described. He was to her, as it were, a double being--the Lorenzo of the past, the Lorenzo of the present. The change in personal appearance was very slight, though the youth had become the man. The dark, brown curling beard, the greater breadth of the shoulders, the powerful development of every limb, and perhaps some increase of height, formed the only material change, while the grace as well as the dignity was still there. In the ideal Lorenzo--the Lorenzo of her imagination--the change was, of course, greater to the eyes of Leonora. He was no longer her own--he was no longer her lover--he was the husband of another--there was an impassable barrier between them; but that day had diminished the difference. She now knew that he was as noble as ever, that he had not been untrue to her without cause, that he had loved her faithfully, painfully, sorrowfully (she dared not let her mind dwell on the thought that he loved her still); and there was a sort of a tie between her heart and his, between the present and the past, produced by undeserved grief mutually endured.
Oh! how she longed to tell him that she had never been faithless to him--that she had loved him ever! Again, she did not dare to admit that she loved him still.
Yet she commanded herself wonderfully. She had come prepared; and she had long obtained the power of concealing her emotions. That she felt and suffered was only known to one in the whole room. She clung more tightly to her father's arm, her fingers pressed more firmly on it; and Ramiro d'Orco felt all she endured, and imagined more. He said not a word indeed to comfort or console her, but there were words spoken in his own heart which would have had a very different effect if they had found breath.
"The day of vengeance is coming," he thought--"is coming fast;" but his aspect betrayed no emotion.
Lorenzo took his way straight to where the Lord of Imola and his daughter stood, close by the side of his own wife; and Eloise laughed with a gay, careless laugh, as she saw the sparkle in her husband's eyes.
"This is my friend, the Signora d'Orco," she said; but Lorenzo took Leonora's hand at once, saying, "I have long had the happiness of knowing her;" and he added (aloud, though in a somewhat sad and softened tone) words which had only significance for her; they were: "I have known her long, though not as well as I should have known her."