o meet
Lamberti in her dreams by the fountain in the Villa Madama. It was
stranger still that she should not have been able to call up the waking
vision in the old way. It was as if some power she had once possessed
had left her very suddenly, a power, or a faculty, or a gift; she could
not tell what it was, but it was gone and something told her that it
would not return. She made haste, and almost ran along the broad
passage.

When she went into the drawing-room Lamberti was standing with the
_Figaro_ in his hand, before her mother who was sitting down. He bowed
rather stiffly, though he smiled a little, and she saw that his blue
eyes glittered and his face had the ruthless look she used to dread. She
knew what it meant now, and was pleased. She wished she could see him
shake the wretch who had written the article; she was glad that he was
just what he was, not too tall, strong, active, red-haired and angry, a
fighting man from head to foot, roused and ready for a violent deed. She
had waited for him so long, outside the closed Temple of Vesta in the
cold night wind!

"It is not the article that matters," he said, taking it for granted
that she knew the contents. "It is what Guido would feel if he read it."

"Especially just now," observed the Countess, looking at Cecilia.

"What are you going to do?" Cecilia asked as quietly as she could.
"Shall you go to Paris?"

"No! this was written in Rome. I will wager my life that the lawyer who
is mentioned here wrote it all and got some clever Frenchman to
translate it for him. I know the fellow by name."

"I thought Monsieur Leroy was at the bottom of it," said Cecilia.

Lamberti looked at her a moment.

"I daresay," he said. "I am sure that the Princess never meant that
anything of this sort should be printed. Did Guido ever tell you about
her money dealings with him?"

Guido had never mentioned them, of course, and Lamberti explained in a
few words exactly what had happened, and the nature of the receipts
Guido had given to his aunt.

"I daresay you are right about Monsieur Leroy," he concluded, "for the
old lady is far too clever to have done such an absurd thing as this,
and it is just like his blundering hatred of Guido."

"I wish he were here," said Cecilia, looking at Lamberti's hands. "I
wonder what you would do to him."

"The lawyer is here, which is more to the purpose," Lamberti answered.

"You cannot fight a lawyer, can you?" asked the young girl.