“But, Signora Lisa,” remonstrated Beppo; “I think—”
But they had not to wait for the opening of the door so long this time as when Giulia and Signor Sandro had stood before it, for they were lighter feet which went across the huge hall to admit them.
While Beppo’s hesitating remonstrances were yet on his lips, the door was opened by Giulia herself.
It was of course the most natural thing in the world that it should be so; but the possibility of it had never entered into Beppo’s head for an instant. Probably the truth was, that he hardly realised the fact that that huge and magnificent door was absolutely the private entrance to the dwelling in which Giulia resided, but rather had an idea that a whole nest of homes would be found within it, in the furthermost penetralia of some one of which she would be at length reached.
And when the tall door opened, and there, framed in the marble door-case, stood before him the figure of his enchantress, more beautiful than ever, set off with a hundred little town coquetries,—transmuted, glorified, but still unmistakeably the Giulia whose eyes had made the Bella Luce light deserve its name, and whose absence made all dark there. He was as much taken aback and rooted to the spot with speechless amazement as if he had suddenly met her at the antipodes.
He certainly had never seen her look so beautiful as she looked at that moment; and all—his own bitter agony, and the stinging insinuations of the attorney—would have been forgotten and forgiven on the spot, but for a withering sight that met his eyes as they looked beyond her into the space of the huge hall. There, immediately behind her, stood the odious, the intolerable corporal. He had evidently either been alone with her in the vast hall, or stuck to her so inseparably that he had accompanied her across it to open the door.
Beppo’s eyes glared with rage and indignation; and assuredly his whole appearance was very little like that of one meeting an old friend, to say nothing of an old love, with pleasure.
Giulia, too, was to a certain degree moved, and to a certain degree embarrassed by the presence of the corporal at her skirts and in her conscience. But when was ever a woman embarrassed under circumstances of the kind, let their difficulty be what it may, as a man is embarrassed.
Giulia’s blood rushed to her face and neck, but she did not lose for an instant either her faculty of speech or her presence of mind; nor did her voice shake, as she said:
“Ah, Signora Lisa! Buon giorno! buona festa! We have been expecting you!”
(Lisa stood nearest to the door, and Beppo’s tall figure was seen over and behind her; therefore it was natural to address her first.)
“Buon giorno! Signor Beppo! Are they all well at Bella Luce? We did not expect to see you to-day.”
Lisa had at once stepped into the hall; and was greeting the corporal in the style of an old acquaintance, leaving Giulia face to face with Beppo, who was still standing gaping, and almost gasping, on the landing-place outside the doorway.
“Signor Caporale,” said she, turning to the corporal, after she had paused half-a-minute with the door in her hand, waiting for Beppo to enter, “will you have the kindness to await my cousin Beppo Vanni’s decision whether he will come in or not. I must go and take la Signorina Lisa to la padrona.”
And so saying she turned away to cross the hall, leaving Beppo and the corporal face to face. Lisa tried to throw an encouraging and inviting glance to poor Beppo, over her shoulder; but was obliged to hurry off with Giulia across the hall.
Beppo had a very good mind to turn on his heel without saying a word, shake the dust off his feet as a testimony against the abominable house he was in, and turn his back on it and Giulia for ever! Forgive her? No! he never, never could forgive her! It was monstrous! It was loathsome!
He had a very good mind to turn his back and walk away,—but he did not do it! For it was beyond his power.
“So you are Signor Beppo Vanni, are you?” Come in, comrade, come in! the more the merrier!” said Corporal Tenda, after the two men had remained staring at each other for a minute without speaking;—Beppo looking scared and savage, and the corporal perfectly self-possessed and perfectly good-humoured.
Corporal Tenda was a model corporal of Bersaglieri, small, light-made, wiry, active, with a shrewd, good-tempered, bright, sunburnt face, a frank, bold blue eye, and a bush of short, crisp, curly brown hair;—a dangerous man for a rival in the good graces of a high-mettled girl, though not comparable either in face or in person to the handsome, stalwart, classical-featured Romagnole. But if his limbs were nimbler than those of the Herculean-proportioned Beppo, his wit was far more so. A ready wit is not generally the distinguishing characteristic of the Piedmontese; and Corporal Tenda was a native of that province; doubtless of a stock deriving its origin as well as its name from the little mountain village which gives its well-known appellation to the picturesque Alpine pass between Nice and Turin. The corporal was, as Lisa had said,—and as has been by no means an uncommon case since Italy has needed all her stoutest arms and hearts in the ranks of her defenders—of a social position in his own country somewhat higher than that which he held (only provisionally, the corporal trusted) in the army. He was a man of some little education, of far more than poor Beppo could boast; and was, though a Piedmontese, a sharp, clever fellow. He was, moreover, a thoroughly good, honest-hearted little man; and though he had abundance of the military tendency to look down on the entire race of bumpkins, and quite a sufficiency of the provincial Piedmontese assumption of superiority to the inhabitants of the other provinces of Italy, yet any man who came into relationship of any kind with Corporal Tenda, and showed himself in that relationship to be a