The loftly noble forehead, the strongly marked brow, the well-opened calm grey eye, all told the same tale of a mind within well-balanced, thoroughly at peace with itself, and thoroughly contented with its outward manifestations, and with every particular of its position.
Clearly the Marchese di Castelmare was a remarkably handsome man. And yet there was something about him,—and always had been even as a young man, which seemed to be in natural accordance with the fact that he had never seemed to seek female society, save as an amphytrion receiving all Ravenna within his hospitable doors. There was a kind of austerity about his bearing;—a something difficult to define, which would have prevented any girl from fancying that he was at all likely to want to make love to her; a something which made it as impossible that the refined courtesy of his address should have called a pleased blush to any girl's cheek, or made her pulse move one beat the faster, as that she should have been so affected by the imposition of the hands of the bishop who confirmed her!
Such as the Marchese was, any committee in the world would have chosen him its president, any jury in the world would have named him its foreman, any board in the world have selected him as its chairman, any deputation in the world would have put him forward as its spokesman; any sovereign in the world might have appointed him grand master of the ceremonies; but never at any period of his life would the suffrages of the ball-room have pitched upon him to be the leader of the cotillon.
Perhaps it was that his life had been always too full to spare any space for such lighter matters. He had been left the head of his family when quite a young man, and had at once, in a great degree, stepped into the place he had ever since occupied in the social world of his native city. And what with his music, which was with him really a passion, and what with his dabblings in science, and what with the multifarious business he had always made for himself by real and useful attention to the affairs pertaining to all the functions he had filled, his life had really been a fully occupied one.
Any man, woman, or child in Ravenna would have said, if such an unpleasant idea had crossed their minds, that what Ravenna would do without him it was frightful to think. He was very popular, as well as profoundly respected by all classes of his fellow-citizens. Though certainly a very proud man, his pride was of a nature that gave offence to nobody. He was not only proud of being Marchese di Castelmare; he was very proud of the esteem, the affection and respect of his fellow-citizens. And perhaps this was, next to his love of music, what most resembled a passion in his nature, and what most ministered to his enjoyment of life.
It was to this phoenix of a Marchese that Signor Ercole Stadione, the impresario, having comforted himself with the Conte Leandro's punch, and got somewhat thawed, and having changed his mountain of travelling wraps for a costume proper for presenting himself in such a presence, repaired to report the result of his journey to Milan.
CHAPTER III
The Impresario's Report
It has been said that Signor Ercole Stadione, when he was first introduced to the reader under circumstances somewhat unfavourable to that dignity of appearance and deportment on which he specially prided himself, presented the appearance of a round mass some five feet in diameter. And it may be thence concluded, that when reduced to the proportions familiar to the citizens of Ravenna, his utmost longitudinal dimensions did not exceed that measure. The impresario was in truth a very small man, weighing perhaps seven stone with his boots. But Signor Ercole held, and very frequently expressed, an opinion that dignity and nobility of appearance depended wholly on bearing, and in no wise on mere corporeal altitude. Men were measured in his country (Rome), he said, from the eyebrow upwards. And though Rome is not exactly the place, of all others, where one might expect to find such an estimate of human value prevailing,—unless, indeed, smallness of that which a man has above his brow be deemed the desirable thing,—it was undeniable that little Signor Ercole carried a mass of forehead which might have been the share of a much taller man.
Nor were the pretensions put forward by the impresario on this score altogether vain. He was no fool;—a shrewd as well as a dapper little man, active and clever at his business, and well liked both by the artists and by the public, for which he catered, despite of being one of the vainest of mortals. Vanity makes some men very odious to their fellows;—in others it is perfectly inoffensive; and though damaging to a claim to respect, is perfectly compatible with a considerable amount of liking for the victim of it.
A very dapper little man was Signor Ercole, as he stepped forth, about eight o'clock, entirely refitted, to wait upon the Marchese at the Palazzo Castelmare. He was dressed in complete black, somewhat threadbare, but scrupulously brushed. He had a large frill at the bosom of his shirt, and more frills around the wristbands of it; one or two rings of immense size and weight on his small fingers; boots with heels two inches high, and a rather long frock-coat buttoned closely round his little body. Signor Ercole had never been known to wear a swallow-tailed coat on any occasion. And spiteful people told each other, that his motive for never quitting the greater shelter of the frock was to be found in his fear of exhibiting to the unkindly glances of the world a pair of knock-knees of rare perfection.