"Signora, I know no more than I have told you. Yesterday a gentleman (I think he must have been a Frenchman) came hither, announced himself as an architect, and told me that your ladyship had sent him to examine the palace, with a view to refurnishing it with great magnificence."
"Did you take him over the rooms?"
"Of course I did, my lady. He took various notes as he went along, and remained longer in your boudoir than in any room in the palace. He sat down and made a drawing of it, asking me, now and then, a question as to your ladyship's tastes and habits."
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the countess, while a painful blush overspread her face, "has he been here to see my need and hear of my privations? Can he have been the secret giver of all this magnificence?"
As the possibility that the Elector of Bavaria was her unknown benefactor, presented itself to Lucretia's mind, her humiliation grew extreme; for if these gifts were from him, they proved that he held the daughter of the noble house of Strozzi to be a creature that was to be bought with gold, without the poor pretence of one word of love.
"When came he, and what sort of looking man was he?" asked she, frowning.
"He came just after the regatta had begun, signora."
"Then, God be praised, it was not HE!" said Lucretia to herself, "for at that hour, he was with me, in Count Cornaro's gondola."
A faint knock was heard at the door, and the decorateur begged permission to enter. His coming awakened the countess from her reverie, and she hastily bade him come in, "for," said she, "it must be almost one o'clock."
"The clock on the mantel of the drawing-room has just struck eleven, your ladyship," replied the man, who, now that she was richly dressed, recognized the lady of the house.