'The Baldassarri, a Bolognese Countess—handsome woman—wife of an old senator. She is a lunatic I no longer visit—has a mania for poets. She always has a varied collection of them, one a barbarian, another a sentimentalist, another a naturalist. Those who write sonnets for weddings are received with a certain degree of favour. She is the woman about whom the most verses and the most insinuations are made. Over there is the Gagliarda, a Baroness, stupid, commonplace, underhanded, and bad. She is always secretly planning to upset the Ministry. After it has fallen, through some other agency, she wears a triumphant look. She is so cruel that she visits the Ministers' wives the day their husbands have been defeated. Otherwise she pushes young deputies forward, or thinks she does. Deluded unfortunates pay court to her; she is an important woman. In her drawing-room the tea is insipid, but the gossip is spicy.'
'Do you go there?'
'No, not now. Do I look like a young deputy?—Ah, there is His Excellency's wife!'
Both men bowed profoundly. The lady responded serenely and gently by an inclination of the head behind the carriage window. Sangiorgio said nothing, but with slight inward trepidation awaited and feared a sarcastic remark from Tullio Giustini.
'Fine woman, His Excellency's wife,' muttered the Tuscan deputy—'too beautiful and too young for him! Nevertheless, she is faithful to him; nobody knows why. Her women friends hate her cordially, but it is the fashion to be her admirer.'
'Do you go there?' asked Sangiorgio.
'No, I am too Ministerial.'
'What does that matter?'
'What should I be doing there? I am a convert, and none but the doubtful are noticed. And then I should join the Opposition if I frequented that house. It rouses my ire too much to see a lean, withered husband, cross-grained and irritable through his political life, appropriate a young wife; and then—and then—Donna Angelica is too kind: she would spoil me.'
'Donna Angelica?' repeated Sangiorgio beneath his breath.