l that he
walked off as he had come, without word or sign.

He had pleased every one. Homing to his nest in the Borgo, he caught his
little Bellaroba in his arms with a rapture none the less because it had
been earned at a stretch. It was long before he could find time and
breath to lead her into the garden and have the story out. Olimpia,
coming down to look for them in the dusk, found that a seat for two
would easily hold one more. It should be added of Angioletto that he
suppressed the incident of the Countess Lionella's salute.

At supper there were evidences that, whatever had been Angioletto's
fate, all had not gone so well with the Captain of Lances. Not that
appetite failed him; indeed, he ate the more for his taciturnity. Yet
not repletion made him sigh, for he sighed consumedly before he began
and rather less when he had finished, as though the kindlier juices of
our nature had got to work to disperse the melancholic. Angioletto
rallied him upon his gloom, but to no purpose. The meal was a silent
one; almost the only conversation was that of the minstrel's foot with
Bellaroba's under the table.

The truth was, that of conversation the Captain had had enough before
supper--a very short colloquy with his Olimpia. In it he was brought to
confess that he had seen his patron that morning. "Well?" had been
Olimpia's commentary--a shot which raked the Captain fore and aft. Well,
he desperately admitted, there was nothing actually arranged:
_patienza_! His most noble master had been greatly harassed with
affairs--the Duke's approaching visit to Rome, the precise forms which
must be observed, the punctilios, the hundred niceties of etiquette;
"Ah, _patienza_!" urged the sweating Mosca.

Patience, she saw, was the only wear; but, per Bacco, he should learn it
too! She was in a high rage. The Captain was given to know that Ferrara
was a great city, with more houses in it than one; in fine, he was shown
the door. Supper first was an extreme and contemptuous condescension of
Olimpia's, urged by the thought that a fed Mosca might be a more
desperate Mosca, while a lean one would be desperate only for a meal.

A true relation of what passed in the Palazzo Guarini may serve to show
how just she had been. The Count had received news of his henchman's
attendance with a nod, had kept him waiting two hours in the _cortile_,
then remembered him and bid him upstairs.

"Well, dog," said the young lord, from his dressing-table,