."

"Take my purse from the table and off with you then."

Captain Mosca bowed to the ground and backed out.

VIII

FIRST MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION

The Borgo of Borso's day was, as you might say, a sucker of the city of
the Po, a flowery crop of villas and gardens about the city's root.
There was the discreet house which Captain Mosca had once chosen for his
Olimpia; there also was that which Guarino Guarini maintained for his
(or any) Bellaroba. It is probable that there were many such houses in
the Borgo; it was a very pleasant place, heavy scented with lilac and
hawthorn in the spring, drowsy all the summer through with rustling
leaves and the murmur of innumerable bees. The place was quiet; there
was no traffic, no hint of the city bustle; on the other hand there was
the notoriety which must always attach to any act done where no others
are doing. Time, day-time especially, hangs heavy in the Borgo. One
machinates in the face of many green shutters, which are not necessarily
dead because they are shut.

This reasoning does not attack the sagacity of Count Guarini, for the
only circumstance which could give it force was entirely unknown to him.
He did not know that the Borgo held Bellaroba's friend, Olimpia, or that
it sheltered under the same roof Olimpia, the Captain's enemy. He knew
nothing of Bellaroba's friends and cared nothing for the Captain's
enemies. But, as a matter of history, the proceedings of Mosca upon that
eventful day were of the greatest possible interest to Signorina
Castaneve. Donna Matura, trust her, had not failed to report his first
appearance, stork-like, in the Borgo. No subsequent voyage of his into
those parts (and he made many) was lost upon Olimpia. Captain Mosca,
honest man, made a preposterous accomplice. His rusty cloak, the white
of his observant eye, the craning of his neck, the very angle of his
sword--cocked up for frolic like a wren's tail--spoke the profuse
conspirator. He spent money liberally, seemed to have plenty more, had
his finger to his nose with every other word. He brought a troop of
underlings; a bevy of young women under his orders turned the little
shuttered house out of doors--at every window carpets, curtains,
hangings of all sorts, fluttered as if for a triumphal procession.
Flowers came in stacks: "H'm!" said Olimpia, "there's a woman in this."
A couple of asses brought skins of wine. "That will be wash for the lean
hog himself," she added. From that