The very genuine passion that Conte M—— felt for Fausta revived with furious intensity; it was in no way checked by the dangerous prospect of his coming into conflict with the only son of the Sovereign in whose dominions he happened to be staying; at the same time he had not the courage to try to see this Prince, or at least to have him followed.
Not being able to attack him in any other way, M——— dared to consider making him ridiculous.
"I shall be banished for ever from the States of Parma," he said to himself; "Pshaw!
What does that matter?"
Had he sought to reconnoitre the enemy's position, he would have learned that the poor young Prince never went out of doors without being followed by three or four old men, tiresome guardians of etiquette, and that the one pleasure of his choice that was permitted him in the world was mineralogy.
By day, as by night, the little palazzo occupied by Fausta, to which the best society of Parma went in crowds, was surrounded by watchers; M—— knew, hour by hour, what she was doing, and, more important still, what others were doing round about her.
There is this to be said in praise of the precautions taken by her jealous lover: this eminently capricious woman had at first no idea of the multiplication of his vigilance.
The reports of all his agents informed Conte M—— that a very young man, wearing a wig of red hair, appeared very often beneath Fausta's windows, but always in a different disguise.
"Evidently, it is the young Prince," thought M——, "otherwise, why the disguise?
And, by gad, a man like me is not made to give way to him.
But for the usurpations of the Venetian Republic, I should be a Sovereign Prince myself."
On the feast of Santo Stefano, the reports of the spies took on a more sombre hue; they seemed to indicate that Fausta was beginning to respond to the stranger's advances.
"I can go away this instant, and take the woman with me!" M—— said to himself; "but no!
At Bologna I fled from del Dongo; here I should be fleeing before a Prince.
But what could the young man say?
He might think that he had succeeded in making me afraid.
And, by God, I come of as good a family as he."
M——— was furious, but, to crown his misery, he made a particular point of not letting himself appear in the eyes of Fausta, whom he knew to be of a mocking spirit, in the ridiculous character of a jealous lover.
On Santo Stefano's day, then, after having spent an hour with her and been welcomed by her with an ardour which seemed to him the height of insincerity, he left her, shortly before eleven o'clock, getting ready to go and hear mass in the church of San Giovanni.
Conte M—— returned home, put on the shabby black coat of a young student of theology, and hastened to San Giovanni; he chose a place behind one of the tombs that adorn the third chapel on the right; he could see everything that went on in the church beneath the arm of a cardinal who is represented as kneeling upon his tomb; this statue kept the light from the back of the chapel and gave him sufficient concealment.
Presently he saw Fausta arrive, more beautiful than ever. She was in full array, and a score of admirers, drawn from the highest ranks of society, furnished her with an escort.
Joyous smiles broke from her eyes and lips.
"It is evident," thought the jealous wretch, "that she counts upon meeting here the man she loves, whom for a long time, perhaps, thanks to me, she has been prevented from seeing."
Suddenly, the keen look of happiness in her eyes seemed to double in intensity;
"My rival is here," muttered M——, and the fury of his outraged vanity knew no bounds. "What sort of figure do I cut here, serving as pendant to a young Prince in disguise?"
But despite every effort on his part, he could never succeed in identifying this rival, for whom his famished gaze kept seeking in every direction.
All through the service Fausta, after letting her eyes wander over the whole church, would end by bringing her gaze to rest, charged with love and happiness, on the dim corner in which M——— was concealed.
In an impassioned heart, love is liable to exaggerate the slightest shades of meaning; it draws from them the most ridiculous conclusions; did not poor M——— end by persuading himself that Fausta had seen him, that, having in spite of his efforts perceived his deadly jealousy, she wished to reproach him with it and at the same time to console him for it with these tender glances?
The tomb of the cardinal, behind which M——— had taken his post of observation, was raised four or five feet above the marble floor of San Giovanni.
The fashionable mass ending about one o'clock, the majority of the faithful left the church, and Fausta dismissed the beaux of the town, on a pretext of devotion; as she remained kneeling on her chair, her eyes, which had grown more tender and more brilliant, were fixed on M———; since there were now only a few people left in the building, she no longer put her eyes to the trouble of ranging over the whole of it before coming joyfully to rest on the cardinal's statue.
"What delicacy!'' thought Conte M———, imagining that he was the object of her gaze.
At length Fausta rose and quickly left the church after first making some odd movements with her hands.
M———, blind with love and almost entirely relieved of his mad jealousy, had left his post to fly to his mistress's palazzo and thank her a thousand, thousand times, when, as he passed in front of the cardinal's tomb, he noticed a young man all in black: this funereal being had remained until then on his knees, close against the epitaph on the tomb, in such a position that the eyes of the jealous lover, in their search for him, must pass over his head and miss him altogether.
This young man rose, moved briskly away, and was immediately surrounded by seven or eight persons, somewhat clumsy in their gait, of a singular appearance, who seemed to belong to him.
M—— hurried after him, but, without any marked sign of obstruction, was stopped in the narrow passage formed by the wooden drum of the door by these clumsy men who were protecting his rival; and when finally, at the tail of their procession, he reached the street, he was in time only to see someone shut the door of a carriage of humble aspect, which, by an odd contrast, was drawn by a pair of excellent horses, and in a moment had passed out of sight.
He returned home panting with fury; presently there arrived his watchers, who reported impassively that that morning the mysterious lover, disguised as a priest, had been kneeling in an attitude of great devotion against a tomb which stood in the entrance of a dark chapel in the church of San Giovanni.
Fausta had remained in the church until it was almost empty, and had then rapidly exchanged certain signs with the stranger; with her hands she had seemed to be making a series of crosses.
M—— hastened to the faithless one's house; for the first time she could not conceal her uneasiness; she told him, with the artless mendacity of a passionate woman, that, as usual, she had gone to San Giovanni, but that she had seen no sign there of that man who was persecuting her.
On hearing these words, M———, beside himself with rage, railed at her as at the vilest of creatures, told her everything that he had seen himself, and, the boldness of her lies increasing with the force of his accusations, took his dagger and flung himself upon her.
With great coolness Fausta said to him:
"Very well, everything you complain of is the absolute truth, but I have tried to keep it from you so that you should not go rushing desperately into mad plans of vengeance which may ruin us both; for, let me tell you once for all, as far as I can make out, the man who is persecuting me with his attentions is one who is accustomed not to meet with any opposition to his wishes, in this country at any rate."
Having very skilfully reminded M—— that, after all, he had no legal authority over her, Fausta ended by saying that probably she would not go again to the church of San Giovanni.
M—— was desperately in love; a trace of coquetry had perhaps combined itself with prudence in the young woman's heart; he felt himself disarmed.
He thought of leaving Parma; the young Prince, however powerful he might be, could not follow him, or if he did follow him would cease to be anything more than his equal.
But pride represented to him afresh that this departure must inevitably have the appearance of a flight, and Conte M—— forbade himself to think of it.
"He has no suspicion that my little Fabrizio is here," the singer said to herself, delighted, "and now we can make a fool of him in the most priceless fashion!"
Fabrizio had no inkling of his good fortune; finding next day that the singer's windows were carefully shuttered, and not seeing her anywhere, he began to feel that the joke was lasting rather too long.
He felt some remorse.
"In what sort of position am I putting that poor Conte Mosca, and he the Minister of Police!
They will think he is my accomplice, I shall have come to this place to ruin his career!