"Ah!" said Frank, with a groan, "that is because your mind is cultivated—you have so many resources; and all my faults have come from idleness. If I had had anything to do on a rainy day, I should never have got into these scrapes."
"Oh! you will have enough to do some day managing your property. We who have no property must find one in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank; I must go home now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of the Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra?"
"The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It may interest her to know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that I never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to her; she is so superior, and I feel positively shy with her."
"Do me the favour, Frank," said Randal, waiting patiently till this reply ended—for he was devising all the time what reason to give for his request—"never to allude to the Riccaboccas either to her or to her brother, to whom you are sure to be presented."
"Why not allude to them?"
Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still at fault, and, for a wonder, he thought it the best policy to go pretty near the truth.
"Why, I will tell you. The Marchesa conceals nothing from her brother, and he is one of the few Italians who are in high favour with the Austrian court."
"Well!"
"And I suspect that poor Dr Riccabocca fled his country from some mad experiment at revolution, and is still hiding from the Austrian police."
"But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an Englishman's dogged inborn conviction of the sanctity of his native island. "I should like to see an Austrian pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to reject."