In those bright January days all Florence was agog regarding the engagement of Count Jules Dubard with Mary Morini, daughter of the popular War Minister. By reason of her mother’s health, they had remained on at the villa all the autumn; for neither had any desire for the wild gaieties and entertaining which residence in Rome entailed upon them, and preferred the quiet life of their ancient hillside home.
Daily through the streets of Florence Mary and Dubard flashed in the Minister’s motor-brougham, hither and thither, paying calls or shopping, being greeted and congratulated on every hand. Her father’s official position had given Mary the entrée to the most exclusive set, and in Florence she was always as popular as she was in the court circle at the Quirinale. She dressed usually in cream flannel, with a large black hat and a huge ostrich boa; while Dubard, smiling and elegant, was ever at her side in the smart conveyance which rushed everywhere with loud trumpeting.
Her family, in ignorance of the tragedy of her young life, were delighted with the engagement, and on every hand had she received heartiest good wishes. For a girl to marry an Englishman or Frenchman is considered the height of chic in Italy, and Mary’s social prestige was increased a hundredfold by her prospect of becoming a French countess. The young pair became the most striking and popular figures in the best Florentine society, while the English sets all vainly struggled to get them to their houses. Madame Morini being too unwell to go out at night, Mary was usually chaperoned by the old Princess Piola, a well-known society leader; and solely in order to please her mother, Mary went to all the functions to which she was bidden.
The Minister’s wife, however, had never entertained any great affection for the English set in Florence. She had once been an English governess herself, and having known them all well through twenty years, had become thoroughly disgusted with their petty bickerings and constant scandal-mongering. Strange that the English on the Continent always divide into a quantity of small cliques. The French, the Germans, even the Scots, all join harmoniously and patriotically in a continental tour; but, as the Italians are so fond of saying, “the English is a good but strange nation.”
With the exception of the British Consul-General’s wife, who was an old friend of her mother’s, Mary visited no other English house.
“The Italian law of caste is bad enough, my dear,” her mother had said to her one day, “but the English backbiting is infinitely worse.”
And so, with the man she was engaged to marry, she was seen night after night at those huge old mediaeval palaces, often dimly lit on account of the penury of their owners, and where the refreshments frequently consisted of home-made lemonade and tarts from the pastrycook’s.
One night at a dance at the great Cusani Palace on the Lung Arno, where the old Marchioness Cusani was entertaining her friends, she found herself chatting with Vito Ricci, the deputy, who, wearing on the lapel of his coat the dark green ribbon and white cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, had bowed low over her hand and murmured his congratulations.
The great salon, with its polished floor, faded gilding, and crumbling frescoes, was of the ornate style of three centuries before, but over everything was a faded and neglected aspect. Those empty niches in the wall had once contained statues by Donatello, Niccolo Pisano, and Montorsoli, all of which had been sold and exported from Italy to America years ago; while the two large panels painted white had each contained a Raphael, long since disposed of to the National Gallery in London. And although the supper consisted of sandwiches from Doney’s, and in lieu of champagne sweet Asti at two-francs-fifty the bottle, yet the nobility of Florence far preferred gathering there to being patronised by the wealthy Americans or English.
The music was good, and Ricci invited Mary to the waltz which at that moment was just commencing. She had known her father’s secret agent ever since she had been a child; therefore, nothing loth, she gave him the favour he requested. Both were excellent dancers. Ricci went into society of necessity, in order to keep in touch with the trend of affairs, and was equally well known in Rome as in Florence, in Turin, or in Naples. His sponsor had been Morini himself, and he was one of the very few of the rank and file of the Camera who moved actually in the best sets.