"But who ever heard of such a thing as going off to the Pineta at that time in the morning, and after being up all night at a ball too?" said Lombardoni, spitefully. "Why, it looks as if a man must have had some scheme, some out-of-the-way motive of some kind to do such a thing."
"Not at all," returned Manutoli angrily, "I don't see that at all. A charmingly imagined frolic, I should say, a capital wind-up for a last night of carnival. I should have liked it myself."
"And then," said one of the others, "one can't refuse such a girl as La Bianca. And it's two to one that she asked Ludovico to take her, for a lark."
"But I happen to know," said Leandro, quickly, "that it was he who proposed it to her. He persuaded her to go."
"And how in the world do you know that, pray?" asked Manutoli, turning sharply upon him.
"I—I heard it said. I was told so. I am sure I don't know who it was said so. Nobody has been talking about anything else. Some fellow or other said that Ludovico had proposed the trip to her."
"The fact is, in short, that you know just nothing at all about it. You happen to know, forsooth! It seems to me, Signor Conte, that you are strangely ready to fancy you know anything that might seem to go against Ludovico," rejoined Manutoli.
"And what would be the result if it should turn out that he was guilty—if he were condemned?" asked one of the younger men, looking afraid of his words, as he spoke them.
"God knows,—the galleys, I suppose. But one must not imagine such a thing. It is too frightful," said Manutoli.
"Horrible! Shocking! Impossible!" cried a chorus of voices.