"And so you are burning your fingers!" said Michel, with a smile.
"Perhaps your hand won't be as steady as it is now, two or three hours later," retorted Visconti; "for you will come to supper with us, won't you, young man? Your father will sing us his old ballads, which are always good for a laugh. There'll be more than a hundred of us at table at once! Ah! what a lark we will have!"
"Make room, make room!" cried a tall footman, with gold lace on all the seams of his livery; "the princess is coming to see if everything is ready. Make haste, stand aside! Don't shake the carpets so hard, you raise a dust. I say! you lighters up there, don't drop the wax so! take away your tools, make a passage!"
"Well," said the majordomo, "now you will hold your peace, I trust, you workmen! Come, make haste; if you are late, at least act as if you were hurrying. I won't be responsible for the rebuke you are going to receive. I am very sorry for you. But it's your own fault; I can't justify you. Ah! Master Pier-Angelo, this time you have no excuse for coming to beg for compliments."
These words reached young Michel's ears, and all his pride reawoke in his heart. The idea that his father could beg for compliments and receive reproaches was intolerable to him. If he had not as yet been able to see the princess, he could fairly say that he had made no attempt to see her. He was not one of those who run eagerly at the heels of a wealthy and powerful person, to feast that person's eyes with the spectacle of puerile and servile admiration. But this time he stooped as he stood on the stool, seeking with his eyes that haughty personage who, according to Master Barbagallo, would in a moment humiliate an assemblage of intelligent and willing mechanics with a gesture or a word. He remained in that position, considerably above the level of the crowd, in order to see better, but all ready to jump down, rush to his old father's side, and answer for him if, in a spasm of too great affability, the heedless old man should allow himself to be insulted.
The vast apartment which they were hastening to complete was nothing more than an immense garden terrace, covered on the outside with such a wilderness of foliage, garlands and streamers, that one might have taken it for an enormous bower after the style of Watteau. Within, movable floors had been laid on the gravel. Three great marble fountains, decorated with mythological characters, were not at all in the way in that extemporized ball-room, but formed its most beautiful decoration. There was sufficient room to promenade and to dance between those graceful piles. They discharged their jets of limpid water into veritable thickets of flowers, beneath the resplendent glare of the great chandeliers, which spangled them with sparks of light. Benches, arranged as in an ancient amphitheatre, dotted with rose-bushes here and there, provided numerous seats for the guests and did not impede the circulation.
The ceiling was so high that the main stairway of the palace, an admirable piece of architecture, adorned with antique statues and jasper urns of the most beautiful patterns, was wholly within the ball-room. The white marble stairs were newly covered with a purple carpet, and the lackeys who preceded the princess having swept back the crowd of workmen, there was a solemn void about the foot of the staircase. Everybody instinctively held his peace in anticipation of a majestic spectacle.
The workmen, impelled by a feeling of curiosity, ingenuous and respectful in some, mocking and indifferent in others, all fixed their eyes on the great carved doors at the top of the staircase. Michel felt that his heart was beating fast, but it was with anger no less than with impatience. "Who in God's name are these nobles and wealthy mortals," he said to himself, "that they walk so proudly over the altars and platforms that our degraded hands construct for them? A goddess of Olympus would hardly be worthy to appear in such state, at the summit of such a temple, to the base mortals prostrate at her feet! Oh! insolence, falsehood and mockery! It may be that the woman who is about to come forth before my eyes is a woman of narrow mind, of ordinary parts; and yet all these bold, strong men, uncover at her approach!"
Michel had asked his father very few questions concerning Princess Agatha's tastes and character; and even those few questions Pier-Angelo had answered, especially of late, in an absent-minded way, as his custom was when anyone introduced a subject foreign to the train of thought induced by his work. But Michel was proud, and the thought that he was about to be brought face to face with some one prouder than himself aroused a feeling of anger and something like hatred in his heart.