"We must get hold of that card," Rinaldo declared. "When you go home tell Giannella to look for it everywhere—she will find it, I am sure. And I will come to the entrance of the palazzo this evening at Ave Maria, and you will be so good as to come down and give it to me. After that, leave it to me—I make it my affair. I would spare you the stairs and come up, dear Sora Mariuccia, but the Professor might see me, and he must suspect nothing as yet. Oh, tell Giannella—"
But Mariuccia did not wait to hear the love messages. Fra Tommaso's bells were pealing the hour, eight o'clock, and the padrone would expect his coffee in precisely fifteen minutes. She sped downstairs at a wonderful pace, opened her huge umbrella on the doorstep, which was wet with rain, and nearly knocked down Sora Amalia, who was in her doorway exchanging the day's news with Sora Rosa opposite. They both looked after the retreating figure and nodded to one another sagely.
"I told you so," cried the lady of the dairy triumphantly. "You see! they make the arrangements."
"La Biondina will at least have the salad at her door," replied Sora Rosa, "and that is a fine thing. But she will never have tomatoes at three baiocchi a pound after she marries that rich Signorino Goffi! Trust me!"
CHAPTER XVIII
As the quick southern dusk was falling Rinaldo stole to the foot of the "Scala III.," concealed himself behind an open stable door, and waited for Mariuccia. Like all his countrymen, he loved mystery. This innocent conspiracy set his pulses throbbing pleasantly and cleared his brain to crystal acuteness. Besides, he had made an ally of Mariuccia, he had opened his heart to her, and, after her first explosion of suspicion, had been received as a prospective son. The victory over the Professor and his mighty endorser, the Princess, would be mere child's play now, if only Giannella held firm. Although he had the happiness of knowing that she loved him, the young man did not deceive himself into believing that she would hold out forever under such pressure as was being brought to bear on her. The little that he knew of young girls had taught him otherwise; the better the girl, the more attention she would pay to the commands of those whom she considered in authority over her. He could not imagine that his own sisters would not meekly accept the spouses selected for them. Giannella was singularly docile and humble-minded. She had always been accustomed to set her own wishes aside where those of others were in opposition to them, and in his few talks with her he had seen that the Professor's awesome learning and the Princess's power, rank, and goodness, caused the girl to regard those two as more or less anointed arbiters of her destiny. Rinaldo himself had plenty of proper respect for his betters, and was a most loyal son of Church and State (one in those palmy days), but he came of a good old provincial stock, quite as proud in its way as any Cestaldini or Santafede; and moreover his university training and his artistic education had brought him in contact with highly educated and broadminded men, so that his outlook on life was a good deal more modern than Giannella's. She had not realized that she was being cruelly imposed upon, that no past benefits could confer on their donors the right to dispose of her entire future against her own inclinations. If she could be brought to understand that, Rinaldo felt that he would be the master of the situation; but there was no time to lose if Bianchi had really made up his mind to marry her at once.
The young man was revolving these thoughts in his dark corner when the grotesquely stealthy tread of creaking shoes drew him from his hiding-place to find Mariuccia peering round the side of the archway leading to the stairs. With a dramatic gesture she beckoned to him, laid a finger on her lips, and pushed a bit of pasteboard into his hands.
"Giannella found it between two of his books," she whispered. "Heaven send he does not look for it to-morrow."