"The lady herself told you that the Marchese Lamberto had proposed marriage to her?" persisted the lawyer. "The lady herself told me so," replied the Marchese. "But I thought you said that you had only just now returned to the city?" objected the lawyer again. "Really, Signor Fortini, one would think that I was being examined before a police-magistrate! However, since my tongue has let the cat out of the bag, you may take the creature, and make the most of her! I did receive the intelligence in question from the lady concerned, and I have just returned to the city. She communicated the fact to me during a little excursion we made together to the Pineta this morning, after the ball. Now you know all about it," said Ludovico, still in a hurry to get away. "Not quite!" rejoined Fortini, quite imperturbably. "If you went to the Pineta with her--(did anybody ever hear of such a mad thing?)--and returned this morning, how can you want to go now to her house to ask whether she is there?" "Because, you very clever inquisitor, though I went to the Pineta with her, I did not say that I had come back with her." "The deuce you did not! Did another gentleman undertake the duty of escorting the lady back to town? It is all exceedingly pleasant for the Marchese Lamberto, upon my word!--oh, exceedingly!--and really a foretaste to him of the joys to come, quite frankly offered to him on the part of the lady!" sneered the old lawyer. "Pshaw! how she may have come back, or with whom, I don't know, and can't guess; and that is just what I am anxious to find out," said Ludovico, in provoked impatience. "I don't understand. Where did you part with the lady?" persisted the lawyer, interested rather by the evident uneasiness of the Marchese Ludovico, than by any care how and in what company Bianca might have found her way back to the city.