Scene IV.
The mistress of Palazzo Sangredo sat in one of her stateliest salons talking with her cousin, the Countess Bembo. At some distance from them, half enveloped in the drapery of a great window, Bianca Sangredo peeped out into the Canal.
“I saw him myself!” said the countess in a vehement whisper. “I saw him go into the house, and I saw him come out. And he was there again this morning, and stopped half an hour. You ought to have an explanation with the marchesa. Everybody knows that the families wish for a marriage between him and Bianca. If Sangredo would stay at home and attend to his duties, Don Claudio would not dare to behave so. But Sangredo never is at home.”
“Oh, yes, he is!” said Sangredo’s wife languidly. “He is always at home in Paris. But the marchesa declares that Claudio goes to Ca’ Mora to study, and that he already speaks Arabic like a sheik. Professor Mora is famous. Papadopoli says that since Mezzofanti no one else has known so many languages.”
“Yes,” said her cousin sharply. “And the professor’s granddaughter will teach him to conjugate amore in every one of them.”
“Mamma,” said Bianca from the window, “Don Claudio’s gondola is at the step.”
“Come and sit by me, child!” her mother said hastily.
When their visitor entered the salon, the two elder ladies received him with the utmost cordiality. Bianca only bent her head, and did not leave her mother’s side; but her childlike dimpling smile was full of kindness. She had a charming snow-drop stillness and modesty.
“I have already seen you to-day, Don Claudio,” said the Countess Bembo. “I passed you near the Giudecca; and you did not look at me, though our gondolas almost touched.”
“I beg your pardon!” he said seriously. “I had been, or was going, to the house of Professor Mora, and I saw no one. He lies at the point of death. It is a great grief to me.”