incapable of daring more than to pull off their petals, and smother
his torture in his heart.

They had wandered out together that morning, repeating such a hymn of
love as the birds warbled in the branches. On their return, the youth,
whose situation can only be described by comparing him to the cherubs
represented by painters as having only a head and wings, had been so
impassioned as to venture to hint a doubt as to the Duchess' entire
devotion, so as to bring her to the point of saying: "What proof do
you need?"

The question had been asked with a royal air, and Memmi had ardently
kissed the beautiful and guileless hand. Then he suddenly started up
in a rage with himself, and left the Duchess. Massimilla remained in
her indolent attitude on the sofa; but she wept, wondering how, young
and handsome as she was, she could fail to please Emilio. Memmi, on
the other hand, knocked his head against the tree-trunks like a hooded
crow.

But at this moment a servant came in pursuit of the young Venetian to
deliver a letter brought by express messenger.

Marco Vendramini,--a name also pronounced Vendramin, in the Venetian
dialect, which drops many final letters,--his only friend, wrote to
tell him that Facino Cane, Prince of Varese, had died in a hospital in
Paris. Proofs of his death had come to hand, and the Cane-Memmi were
Princes of Varese. In the eyes of the two young men a title without
wealth being worthless, Vendramin also informed Emilio, as a far more
important fact, of the engagement at the _Fenice_ of the famous tenor
Genovese, and the no less famous Signora Tinti.