A week passed by, and the gaiety of Carnival was again at its height; and again a week elapsed, and Lent was come.  Saracinesca went everywhere and saw everybody as usual, and then after Ash-Wednesday he occasionally showed himself at some of those quiet evening receptions which his son so much detested.  But he was restless and discontented.  He longed to begin the fight, and could not sleep for thinking of it.  Like Giovanni, he was strong and revengeful; but Giovanni had from his mother a certain slowness of temperament, which often deterred him from action just long enough to give him time for reflection, whereas the father, when roused, and he was roused easily, loved to strike at once.  It chanced one evening, in a great house, that Saracinesca came upon the Cardinal standing alone in an outer room.  He was on his way into the reception; but he had stopped, attracted by a beautiful crystal cup of old workmanship, which stood, among other objects of the kind, upon a marble table in one of the drawing-rooms through which he had to pass.  The cup itself, of deeply carved rock crystal, was set in chiselled silver, and if not the work of Cellini himself, must have been made by one of his pupils.  Saracinesca stopped by the great man’s side.

“Good evening, Eminence,” he said.

“Good evening, Prince,” returned the Cardinal, who recognised Saracinesca’s voice without looking up.  “Have you ever seen this marvellous piece of work?  I have been admiring it for a quarter of an hour.”  He loved all objects of the kind, and understood them with rare knowledge.

“It is indeed exceedingly beautiful,” answered Saracinesca, who longed to take advantage of the opportunity of speaking to Cardinal Antonelli upon the subject nearest to his heart.

“Yes—­yes,” returned the Cardinal rather vaguely, and made as though he would go on.  He saw from Saracinesca’s commonplace praise, that he knew nothing of the subject.  The old Prince saw his opportunity slipping from him, and lost his head.  He did not recollect that he could see the Cardinal alone whenever he pleased, by merely asking for an interview.  Fate had thrust the Cardinal in his path, and fate was responsible.

“If your Eminence will allow me, I would like a word with you,” he said suddenly.

“As many as you please,” answered the statesman, blandly.  “Let us sit down in that corner—­no one will disturb us for a while.”

He seemed unusually affable, as he sat himself down by Saracinesca’s side, gathering the skirt of his scarlet mantle across his knee, and folding his delicate hands together in an attitude of restful attention.

“You know, I daresay, a certain Del Ferice, Eminence?” began the Prince.

“Very well—­the deus ex machina who has appeared to carry off Donna Tullia Mayer.  Yes, I know him.”

“Precisely, and they will match very well together; the world cannot help applauding the union of the flesh and the devil.”