ought to be summarily dealt with. If
the Cardinal argued the case, the Prince would asseverate, after his
manner, and some sort of result was sure to follow. As he thus determined
upon his course, his doubts seemed to vanish, as they generally do in the
mind of a strong man, when action becomes imminent, and the confidence
the old man had exhibited to his son very soon became genuine. It was
almost intolerable to have to wait so long, however, before doing
anything. Giovanni and he had decided to allow Del Ferice's marriage
to take place before producing the explosion, in order the more certainly
to strike both the offenders; now it seemed best to strike at once.
Supposing, he argued with himself, that Donna Tullia and her husband
chose to leave Rome for Paris the day after their wedding, half the
triumph would be lost; for half the triumph was to consist in Del
Ferice's being imprisoned for a spy in Rome, whereas if he once crossed
the frontier, he could at most be forbidden to return, which would be but
a small satisfaction to Saracinesca, or to Giovanni.

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 looki