you please,’ said Weisspriess, drawing out one stream of his moustache. ‘In the meantime, thank me for luring you away from the chances of a street row.’
Barto Rizzo was left behind, and they rode on to the Duomo. Glancing up at its pinnacles, Weisspriess said:
‘How splendidly Flatschmann’s jagers would pick them off from there, now, if the dogs were giving trouble in this part of the city!’
They entered upon a professional discussion of the ways and means of dealing with a revolutionary movement in the streets of a city like Milan, and passed on to the Piazza La Scala. Weisspriess stopped before the Play-bills. ‘To-morrow’s the fifteenth of the month,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you a secret, Pierson? I am to have a private peep at the new prima donna this night. They say she’s charming, and very pert. “I do not interchange letters with Germans.” Benlomik sent her a neat little note to the conservatorio—he hadn’t seen her only heard of her, and that was our patriotic reply. She wants taming. I believe I am called upon for that duty. At least, my friend Antonio-Pericles, who occasionally assists me with supplies, hints as much to me. You’re an engaged man, or, upon my honour, I wouldn’t trust you; but between ourselves, this Greek—and he’s quite right—is trying to get her away from the set of snuffy vagabonds who are prompting her for mischief, and don’t know how to treat her.’
While he was speaking Barto Rizzo pushed roughly between them, and with a black brush painted the circle about Vittoria’s name.
‘Do you see that?’ said Weisspriess.
‘I see,’ Wilfrid retorted, ‘that you are ready to meddle with the reputation of any woman who is likely to be talked about. Don’t do it in my presence.’
It was natural for Captain Weisspriess to express astonishment at this outburst, and the accompanying quiver of Wilfrid’s lip.
‘Austrian military etiquette, Lieutenant Pierson,’ he said, ‘precludes the suspicion that the officers of the Imperial army are subject to dissension in public. We conduct these affairs upon a different principle. But I’ll tell you what. That fellow’s behaviour may be construed as a more than common stretch of incivility. I’ll do you a service. I’ll arrest him, and then you can hear tidings of your precious letter. We’ll have his confession published.’
Weisspriess drew his sword, and commanded the troopers in attendance to lay hands on Barto; but the troopers called, and the officer found that they were surrounded. Weisspriess shrugged dismally. ‘The brute must go, I suppose,’ he said. The situation was one of those which were every now and then occurring in the Lombard towns and cities, when a chance provocation created a riot that became a revolt or not, according to the timidity of the ruling powers or the readiness of the disaffected. The extent and evident regulation of the crowd operated as a warning to the Imperial officers. Weisspriess sheathed his sword and shouted, ‘Way, there!’ Way was made for him; but Wilfrid lingered to scrutinize the man who, for an unaccountable reason, appeared to be his peculiar enemy. Barto carelessly threaded the crowd, and Wilfrid, finding it useless to get out after him, cried, ‘Who is he? Tell me the name of that man?’ The question drew a great burst of laughter around him, and exclamations of ‘Englishman! Englishman!’ He turned where there was a clear way left for him in the track of his brother officer.
Comments on the petty disturbance had been all the while passing at the Caffe La Scala, where sat Agostino Balderini, with, Count Medole and others, who, if the order for their arrest had been issued, were as safe in that place as in their own homes. Their policy, indeed, was to show themselves openly abroad. Agostino was enjoying the smoke of paper cigarettes, with all prudent regard for the well-being of an inflammable beard. Perceiving Wilfrid going by, he said, ‘An Englishman! I continue to hope much from his countrymen. I have no right to do so, only they insist on it. They have promised, and more than once, to sail a fleet to our assistance across the plains of Lombardy, and I believe they will—probably in the watery epoch which is to follow Metternich. Behold my Carlo approaching. The heart of that lad doth so boil the brain of him, he can scarcely keep the lid on. What is it now? Speak, my son.’
Carlo Ammiani had to communicate that he had just seen a black circle to Vittoria’s name on two public playbills. His endeavour to ape a deliberate gravity while he told the tale, roused Agostino’s humouristic ire.
‘Round her name?’ said Agostino.
‘Yes; in every bill.’
‘Meaning that she is suspected!’
‘Meaning any damnable thing you like.’
‘It’s a device of the enemy.’
Agostino, glad of the pretext to recur to his habitual luxurious irony, threw himself back, repeating ‘It ‘s a device of the enemy. Calculate, my son, that the enemy invariably knows all you intend to do: determine simply to astonish him with what you do. Intentions have lungs, Carlo, and depend on the circumambient air, which, if not designedly treacherous, is communicative. Deeds, I need not remark, are a different body. It has for many generations been our Italian error to imagine a positive blood relationship—not to say maternity itself—existing between intentions and deeds. Nothing of the sort! There is only the intention of a link to unite them. You perceive? It’s much to be famous for fine intentions, so we won’t complain. Indeed, it’s not our business to complain, but Posterity’s; for fine intentions are really rich possessions, but they don’t leave grand legacies; that is all. They mean to possess the future: they are only the voluptuous sons of the present. It’s my belief, Carlino, from observation, apprehension, and other gifts of my senses, that our paternal government is not unacquainted with our intention to sing a song in a certain opera. And it may have learnt our clumsy method of enclosing names publicly, at the bidding of a non-appointed prosecutor, so to, isolate or extinguish them. Who can say? Oh, ay! Yes! the machinery that can so easily be made rickety is to blame; we admit that; but if you will have a conspiracy like a Geneva watch, you must expect any slight interference with the laws that govern it to upset the mechanism altogether. Ah-a! look yonder, but not hastily, my Carlo. Checco is nearing us, and he knows that he has fellows after him. And if I guess right, he has a burden to deliver to one of us.’
Checco came along at his usual pace, and it was quite evident that he fancied himself under espionage. On two sides of the square a suspicious figure threaded its way in the line of shade not far behind him. Checco passed the cafe looking at nothing but the huge hands he rubbed over and over. The manifest agents of the polizia were nearing when Checco ran back, and began mouthing as in retort at something that had been spoken from the cafe as he shot by. He made a gabbling appeal on either side, and addressed the pair of apparent mouchards, in what, if intelligible, should have been the language of earnest entreaty. At the first word which the caffe was guilty of uttering, a fit of exasperation seized him, and the exciteable creature plucked at his hat and sent it whirling across the open-air tables right through the doorway. Then, with a whine, he begged his followers to get his hat back for him. They complied.
‘We only called “Illustrissimo!”’ said Agostino, as one of the men returned from the interior of the caffe hat in hand.
‘The Signori should have known better—it is an idiot,’ the man replied. He was a novice: in daring to rebuke he betrayed his office.
Checco snatched his hat from his attentive friend grinning, and was away in a flash. Thereupon the caffe laughed, and laughed with an abashing vehemence that disconcerted the spies. They wavered in their choice of following Checco or not; one went a step forward, one pulled back; the loiterer hurried to rejoin his comrade, who was now for a retrograde movement, and standing together they swayed like two imperfectly jolly fellows, or ballet bandits, each plucking at the other, until at last the maddening laughter made them break, reciprocate cat-like hisses of abuse, and escape as they best could—lamentable figures.
‘It says well for Milan that the Tedeschi can scrape up nothing better from the gutters than rascals the like of those for their service,’ quoth Agostino. ‘Eh, Signor Conte?’
‘That enclosure about La Vittoria’s name on the bills is correct,’ said the person addressed, in a low tone. He turned and indicated one who followed from the interior of the caffe.
‘If