Madame Mayer blushed with annoyance; both because she coveted Giovanni’s admiration more than that of other men, and knew that she had not won it, and because she hated to feel that Del Ferice was able to wound her so easily.  To cover her discomfiture she returned to the subject of politics.

“We talk a great deal of our convictions,” she said; “but in the meanwhile we must acknowledge that we have accomplished nothing at all.  What is the good of our meeting here two or three times a-week, meeting in society, whispering together, corresponding in cipher, and doing all manner of things, when everything goes on just the same as before?”

“Better give it up and join Don Giovanni and his party,” returned Del Ferice, with a sneer.  “He says if a change comes he will make the best of it.  Of course, we could not do better.”

“With us it is so easy,” said Gouache, thoughtfully.  “A handful of students, a few paving-stones, ‘Vive la Republique!’ and we have a tumult in no time.”

That was not the kind of revolution in which Del Ferice proposed to have a hand.  He meditated playing a very small part in some great movement; and when the fighting should be over, he meant to exaggerate the part he had played, and claim a substantial reward.  For a good title and twenty thousand francs a-year he would have become as stanch for the temporal power as any canon of St. Peter’s.  When he had begun talking of revolutions to Madame Mayer and to half-a-dozen harebrained youths, of whom Gouache the painter was one, he had not really the slightest idea of accomplishing anything.  He took advantage of the prevailing excitement in order to draw Donna Tullia into a closer confidence than he could otherwise have aspired to obtain.  He wanted to marry her, and every new power he could obtain over her was a step towards his goal.  Neither she nor her friends were of the stuff required for revolutionary work; but Del Ferice had hopes that, by means of the knot of malcontents he was gradually drawing together, he might ruin Giovanni Saracinesca, and get the hand of Donna Tullia in marriage.  He himself was indeed deeply implicated in the plots of the Italian party; but he was only employed as a spy, and in reality knew no more of the real intentions of those he served than did Donna Tullia herself.  But the position was sufficiently lucrative; so much so that he had been obliged to account for his accession of fortune by saying that an uncle of his had died and left him money.

“If you expected Don Giovanni to join a mob of students in tearing up paving-stones and screaming ‘Vive la Republique!’ I am not surprised that you are disappointed in your expectations,” said Donna Tullia, rather scornfully.

“That is only Gouache’s idea of a popular movement,” answered Del Ferice.

“And yours,” returned Anastase, lowering his mahl-stick and brushes, and turning sharply upon the Italian—­“yours would be to begin by stabbing Cardinal Antonelli in the back.”