She went towards the door.
"Signori," said she, when she saw Monte-Leone and Taddeo preparing to follow her, "I came hither with confidence in the honor of two gentlemen, who, I am sure, will not leave the room until I shall have left. Do not be afraid," she continued, with a faint smile on her lips, "a carriage awaits, but not to convey me to the Castle Del Uovo."
Then casting on the Count a glance instinct with sadness and regret, she offered her hand to Taddeo, who covered it with kisses, and preceded by Giacomo left the room. For some moments the two friends looked at each other in silence. Taddeo then went towards the door, saying:
"But I am a fool to let her escape thus."
He crossed the court and went to the door of the room. The carriage, however, was gone, and far in the distance he heard the sound of the wheels.
II.—A LAST APPEARANCE.
The hearts of Monte-Leone and of Taddeo Rovero were, after the departure of the singer, in very different conditions. Monte-Leone, delighted with the present, and with the prospect of future success, to be attained as the husband of Aminta, forgot all else—even the terrible responsibility which weighed on him as the chief of a faction of forbidden societies, and the perpetual dangers with which it menaced him. Monte-Leone had an energetic heart but a volatile mind, over which the accidents of life glide like the runner of a sleigh over polished ice, almost without leaving traces.
A circumstance of which we will speak of by and by, aroused the Count from his peace of soul to cast him in the waves of that sea of politics where shipwrecks are so common and tempests so usual. The only idea which occupied Taddeo was to see La Felina again. He said rightly enough that the rays of such a star could not long be concealed; that its glory and success would always betray it, and that the farewell token of Monte-Leone in the Etruscan house would not be for ever.
Under the influence, then, of very different sentiments, the two friends returned to the Count's hotel at Naples. Less beautiful than the magnificent palace of Monte-Leone, it did not, like the latter, render indispensable the numerous and imposing array of servants, of which his somewhat restricted fortune deprived Monte-Leone. Descried by its master during the whole time of his seclusion, this hotel had been the scene of the ruinous pleasures of the Count. Splendid festivals had been given there; joyous suppers had been proposed, and the shadow of more than one graceful dame, wrapped in silken folds, had been traced at midnight on the great white marble wall of the portico.
Giacomo, who had left the Etruscan house at an early hour, had superintended the preparation of the hotel for its master, and the unfolding of the tall wide windows made the house seem to stare on the sunlight, like blind persons who but recently have recovered their sight. The resuscitation of the hotel of Monte-Leone, as people in the Toledo-street said, created a great sensation in that quarter. The Count and Taddeo had been there but a short time, when Giacomo, evidently in a very bad humor, announced Signor Pignana. Many of the Count's friends who had heard of his return came to see him and crowded around him. They arose to leave when the new-comer was announced; but they paused when they saw the strange person introduced.