"Isn't that so, Hector?" said the signora, as we passed him, putting her head between the abbé's face and mine. Lila was trembling in every limb; so was the signora, but her alarm redoubled her courage. A carriage with the crest and livery of the Grimanis drove up with a great clatter, and the multitude, who always gaze greedily at any display of magnificence, crowded under the wheels and the horses' feet. Moreover, the Grimani equipage always attracted a particularly large crowd of beggars; for the pious aunt was accustomed to dispense alms lavishly as she drove along. A tall footman at the carriage door was obliged to push them back in order to open it; and I walked on, still escorting the signora, still followed by Abbé Cignola's inquisitorial glance.
"Get in with me," said the signora, in a tone that admitted of no denial, and with a vigorous pressure of my arm, as she placed her foot on the step. I hesitated; it seemed to me that this last audacious stroke would inevitably be her ruin.
"Get in, I say," she repeated in a sort of passion; and as soon as I was seated by her side she herself raised the window, barely giving Lila time to take her seat opposite us, and the servant to close the door. In an instant we were driving at full speed through the streets of Florence.
"Don't be afraid, my dear Lila," said the signora, putting her arm around her foster sister's neck, and kissing her affectionately on the cheek; "everything will come out all right. Abbé Cignola has never seen my cousin, and it is impossible that he should have seen Signor Lelio distinctly enough ever to discover the fraud."
"Oh! signora, Abbé Cignola is the kind of man one can't deceive."
"Bah! what do I care for your Abbé Cignola? I tell you that I make my aunt believe whatever I choose."
"And Signor Hector will say that he didn't go to mass with you," I observed.
"Oh! as for that, I promise you that he will say whatever I want him to; if necessary I will convince him that he actually was at mass while he fancied that he was hunting."
"But the servants, signora? The footman looked at Signor Lelio with a strange expression, then suddenly started back, as if he had recognized the piano-tuner."
"Very good! you must tell him that I met that man in the church and bade him good-morning; that he told me that he had an errand to do in our neighborhood, and that, as I am very obliging, I offered to save him the trouble of going there on foot. We will set him down in front of the first country house we come to. And you can say in addition that I am very heedless, that my aunt has very good reason to scold me, but that I am an excellent young person, although a little wild, and that it grieves you to see me so constantly reprimanded. As they are all fond of me, and as I will give each one of them a little present, they will say nothing at all. Enough of this! can't either of you think of something else to say to me than lamentations over a thing that is done? Signor Lelio, how do you like this gloomy city of Florence? Don't you think that all these black old palaces, iron-bound to the very eaves, look exactly like prisons?"