The tears of the servants flowed in double volume, and gradually changed into cries that were almost seditious; the Duchessa stepped into her carriage and drove to the Prince's Palace.
Despite the unusual hour, she sent in a request for an audience by General Fontana, the Aide-de-Camp in waiting; she was by no means in court dress, a fact which threw this Aide-de-Camp into a profound stupor.
As for the Prince, he was not at all surprised, still less annoyed by this request for an audience.
"We shall see tears flowing from fine eyes," he said to himself, rubbing his hands. "She comes to sue for pardon; at last that proud beauty is going to humble herself!
She was, really, too insupportable with her little airs of independence!
Those speaking eyes seemed always to be saying to me, when the slightest thing offended her: 'Naples or Milan would have very different attractions as a residence from your little town of Parma.'
In truth, I do not reign over Naples, nor over Milan; but now at last this great lady is coming to ask me for something which depends upon me alone, and which she is burning to obtain; I always thought that nephew's coming here would bring me some advantage."
While the Prince was smiling at these thoughts, and giving himself up to all these agreeable anticipations, he walked up and down his cabinet, at the door of which General Fontana remained standing stiff and erect like a soldier presenting arms.
Seeing the sparkling eyes of the Prince, and remembering the Duchessa's travelling dress, he imagined a dissolution of the Monarchy.
His bewilderment knew no bounds when he heard the Prince say:
"Ask the Signora Duchessa to wait for a quarter of an hour."
The General Aide-de-Camp made his half-turn, like a soldier on parade; the Prince was still smiling:
"Fontana is not accustomed," he said to himself, "to see that proud Duchessa kept waiting.
The face of astonishment with which he is going to tell her about the quarter of an hour to wait will pave the way for the touching tears which this cabinet is going to see her shed."
This quarter of an hour was exquisite for the Prince; he walked up and down with a firm and steady pace; he reigned.
"It will not do at this point to say anything that is not perfectly correct; whatever my feelings for the Duchessa may be, I must never forget that she is one of the greatest ladies of my court.
How used Louis XIV to speak to the Princesses, his daughters, when he had occasion to be displeased with them?"
And his eyes came to rest on the portrait of the Great King.
The amusing thing was that the Prince never thought of asking himself whether he should shew clemency to Fabrizio, or what form that clemency should take.
Finally, at the end of twenty minutes, the faithful Fontana presented himself again at the door, but without saying a word.
"The Duchessa Sanseverina may enter," cried the Prince, with a theatrical air.
"Now for the tears," he added inwardly, and, as though to prepare himself for such a spectacle, took out his handkerchief.
Never had the Duchessa been so gay or so pretty; she did not seem five and twenty.
Seeing her light and rapid little step scarcely brush the carpet, the poor Aide-de-Camp was on the point of losing his reason altogether.
"I have a thousand pardons to ask of Your Serene Highness," said the Duchessa in her light and gay little voice; "I have taken the liberty of presenting myself before him in a costume which is not exactly conventional, but Your Highness has so accustomed me to his kindnesses that I have ventured to hope that he will be pleased to accord me this pardon also."
The Duchessa spoke quite slowly so as to give herself time to enjoy the spectacle of the Prince's face; it was delicious, by reason of the profound astonishment and of the traces of the grand manner which the position of his head and arms still betrayed.
The Prince sat as though struck by a thunderbolt; in a shrill and troubled little voice he exclaimed from time to time, barely articulating the words:
"What's that.'
What's that!"
The Duchessa, as though out of respect, having ended her compliment, left him ample time to reply; then went on:
"I venture to hope that Your Serene Highness deigns to pardon me the incongruity of my costume"; but, as she said the words, her mocking eyes shone with so bright a sparkle that the Prince could not endure it; he studied the ceiling, an act which with him was the final sign of the most extreme embarrassment.
"What's that!
What's that!" he said again; then he had the good fortune to hit upon a phrase:—"Signora Duchessa, pray be seated"; he himself drew forward a chair for her, not ungraciously. The Duchess was by no means insensible to this courtesy; she moderated the petulance of her gaze.
"What's that!
What's that!" the Prince once more repeated, moving uneasily in his chair, in which one would have said that he could find no solid support.
"I am going to take advantage of the cool night air to travel by post," went on the Duchessa, "and as my absence may be of some duration, I have not wished to leave the States of His Serene Highness without thanking him for all the kindnesses which, in the last five years, he has deigned to shew me."
At these words the Prince at last understood; he grew pale; he was the one man in the world who really suffered when he saw himself proved wrong in his calculations. Then he assumed an air of grandeur quite worthy of the portrait of Louis XIV which hung before his eyes.
"Very good," thought the Duchessa, "there is a man."
"And what is the reason for this sudden departure?" said the Prince in a fairly firm tone.
"I have long had the plan in my mind," replied the Duchessa, "and a little insult which has been offered to Monsignor del Dongo, whom to-morrow they are going to sentence to death or to the galleys, makes me hasten my departure."
"And to what town are you going?"
"To Naples, I think."
She added as she rose to her feet:
"It only remains for me to take leave of Your Serene Highness and to thank him most humbly for his former kindnesses."
She, in turn, spoke with so firm an air that the Prince saw that in two minutes all would be over; once the sensation of her departure had occurred, he knew that no further arrangement was possible; she was not a woman to retrace her steps.
He ran after her.
"But you know well, Signora Duchessa," he said, taking her hand, "that I have always felt a regard for you, a regard to which it rested only with you to give another name.
A murder has been committed; that is a fact which no one can deny; I have entrusted the sifting of the evidence to my best judges… ."
At these words the Duchessa rose to her full height; every sign of respect and even of urbanity disappeared in the twinkling of an eye; the outraged woman became clearly apparent, and the outraged woman addressing a creature whom she knew to have broken faith with her.
It was with an expression of the most violent anger, and indeed of contempt that she said to the Prince, dwelling on every word: