“No. Signorino.” And then she generalised, with untranslatable magniloquence: “Un amplissimo porporato non va mai solo.”
Peter ought to have hugged her for that amplissimo porporato. But he was selfishly engrossed in his emotions.
“Who was with him?” He tried to throw the question out with a casual effect, an effect of unconcern.
“The Signorina Emelia Manfredi was with him,” answered Marietta, little recking how mere words can stab.
“Oh,” said Peter.
“The Lord Prince Cardinal Udeschini was very sorry not to see the Signorino,” continued Marietta.
“Poor man—was he? Let us trust that time will console him,” said Peter, callously.
But, “I wonder,” he asked himself, “I wonder whether perhaps I was the least bit hasty yesterday? If I had stopped, I should have saved the Cardinal a journey here to-day—I might have known that he would come, these Italians are so punctilious—and then, if I had stopped—if I had stopped—possibly—possibly—”
Possibly what? Oh, nothing. And yet, if he had stopped... well, at any rate, he would have gained time. The Duchessa had already begun to thaw. If he had stopped... He could formulate no precise conclusion to that if; but he felt dimly remorseful that he had not stopped, he felt that he had indeed been the least bit hasty. And his remorse was somehow medicine to his reviving hope.
“After all, I scarcely gave things a fair trial yesterday,” he said.