"My lady, the viscontessa, has gone to confession at the Sylvestrian monastery; old Frà Adriano surfeited himself with choke-priest, and was unable to officiate this evening."
"Tush!" said I, drawing her into a deep alcove, "I mean, la Signora Bianca."
"She is in the garden with the colonel."
"What colonel? Is Luigi here?"
"Signor Claude, you are so impatient!" she replied slowly, while her black eyes twinkled provokingly, and raising their arched brows with affected surprise, she added, "Have you never heard of the colonel?"
"Colonel again! no, no! Who the devil is he?" I muttered impatiently, jerking up my sword-belt, while I ran over in my memory all those I knew who were likely to rival me. "Who the mischief?—it cannot be De Watteville, he is too old; Oswald, he is at Scylla; or Kempt—Annina, tell me, and you shall give me a kiss in exchange for as many ducats as will buy a magnificent embroidered panno to set off these jetty locks of yours."
"A girl of Capri would rather give the kiss without the ducats: it would look so like selling the secrets of the signorina, otherwise;" and while a blush suffused her face she began to sing, with a coquettish air, "O sweet isle of Capri," &c.
"You shall have both: the kiss now, and the ducats hereafter," said I, saluting the Madonna-like cheek of the pretty Italian; and then it blushed red as the ruby wine of her own rocky isle, while her eyes sparkled like the waves that roll around it in the sunshine.
"Signor," she whispered, "truly I wish you well; but beware of the Colonel Almario, who is daily at the villa, and is even now with my young lady in the garden—in the walk; you know it, shaded by the great laburnums."
"Almario! I never heard such a name before—sounds well enough, though: but how the deuce came he here?"