CHAPTER V.

Valdarno took Donna Tullia by his side upon the front seat of the drag; and as luck would have it, Giovanni and Del Ferice sat together behind them.  Half-a-dozen other men found seats somewhere, and among them were the melancholy Spicca, who was a famous duellist, and a certain Casalverde, a man of rather doubtful reputation.  The others were members of what Donna Tullia called her “corps de ballet.”  In those days Donna Tullia’s conduct was criticised, and she was thought to be emancipated, as the phrase went.  Old people opened their eyes at the spectacle of the gay young widow going off into the Campagna to picnic with a party of men; but if any intimate enemy had ventured to observe to her that she was giving occasion for gossip, she would have raised her eyebrows, explaining that they were all just like her brothers, and that Giovanni was indeed a sort of cousin.  She would perhaps have condescended to say that she would not have done such a thing in Paris, but that in dear old Rome one was in the bosom of one’s family, and might do anything.  At present she sat chatting with Valdarno, a tall and fair young man, with a weak mouth and a good-natured disposition; she had secured Giovanni, and though he sat sullenly smoking behind her, his presence gave her satisfaction.  Del Ferice’s smooth face wore an expression of ineffable calm, and his watery blue eyes gazed languidly on the broad stretch of brown grass which bordered the highroad.

For some time the drag bowled along, and Giovanni was left to his own reflections, which were not of a very pleasing kind.  The other men talked of the chances of luck with the hounds; and Spicca, who had been a great deal in England, occasionally put in a remark not very complimentary to the Roman hunt.  Del Ferice listened in silence, and Giovanni did not listen at all, but buttoned his overcoat to the throat, half closed his eyes, and smoked one cigarette after another, leaning back in his seat.  Suddenly Donna Tullia’s laugh was heard as she turned half round to look at Valdarno.

“Do you really think so?” she cried.  “How soon?  What a dance we will lead them then!”

Del Fence pricked his ears in the direction of her voice, like a terrier that suspects the presence of a rat.  Valdarno’s answer was inaudible, but Donna Tullia ceased laughing immediately.

“They are talking politics,” said Del Ferice in a low voice, leaning towards Giovanni as he spoke.  The latter shrugged his shoulders and went on smoking.  He did not care to be drawn into a conversation with Del Ferice.