This fancy drove him forth wildly from Mr. Hunstanton’s presence. He dared not speak, or make any answer, in case of betraying feelings which the good Hunstanton could not understand; and it was some time before he realised the real practical effect of his good Hunstanton’s proceedings. A vessel cannot be filled above its measure, and Pandolfini was too much overwhelmed with the absolute loss of Diana to take into his mind the fact that this loss involved something else equally appalling. He was not to have the _gentil donna_, the princess of his dreams; but that was not all. Something had been thrust into his arms instead. Something? What? He stood still in the middle of the street when the fact burst upon him, and gave a sudden wild cry of despair. It was not so wonderful there as it would be here that a man should cry aloud in the extremity of suffering. What was this that was thrust into his arms instead? When he stood there and fairly contemplated what had happened to him, any car of Juggernaut that had driven over him and crushed him into a shapeless mass upon the stones would have done Pandolfini a kindness--or so at least in his wretchedness he thought. Mr. Hunstanton did not understand his visitor’s strange change of mood. To come in so eager, white with anxiety, breathless with excitement,--and then, when the good news was told him, to stand aghast for a moment, to walk away to the window, to make no reply. These were all the acts of a madman. Was his head turned?--was there a screw loose somewhere, as was the case so often with “these Italians”? Next time, no doubt, he would be laughing and crying with joy--always excitable, always in one extreme or another. Mr. Hunstanton forgot the peculiarity of his friend’s character, and classed him thus summarily with his race, by way of getting rid of a cold shiver of doubt, a momentary uncomfortableness on his own part, as to whether he had, as he had intended, carried out Pandolfini’s instructions to the letter, and acted for him according to his wishes. He quenched out this alarming thought by the reflection that a foreigner, and especially an Italian, acted exactly opposite to what an Englishman would do in the circumstances. He felt it so much, that was how it was. It overpowered him. These foreign fellows, even the best of them, let themselves go. They gave in to their feelings. They had not the self-control which is peculiar to the Briton, and did not even think self-control necessary. That was all about it. Pandolfini was so much overcome by his success and happiness that it took all power of speech from him. He was (no doubt) actually struck dumb from excess of feeling. By-and-by he would come back and throw himself on his friend’s neck, and thank him for his exertions. There could be no doubt that this was how it would be.