"
"Back at Pisa? Why did you leave it?"
Brigida's eyes began to lose their indolent expression. She sat
up suddenly in her chair, and set one of her hands heavily on a
little table by her side.
"Why?" she repeated. "Because when I find the game going against
me, I prefer giving it up at once to waiting to be beaten."
"Ah! you refer to that last year's project of yours for making
your fortune among the sculptors. I should like to hear how it
was you failed with the wealthy young amateur. Remember that I
fell ill before you had any news to give me. Your absence when I
returned from Lucca, and, almost immediately afterward, the
marriage of your intended conquest to the sculptor's daughter,
proved to me, of course, that you must have failed. But I never
heard how. I know nothing at this moment but the bare fact that
Maddalena Lomi won the prize."
"Tell me first, do she and her husband live together happily?"
"There are no stories of their disagreeing. She has dresses,
horses, carriages; a negro page, the smallest lap-dog in
Italy--in short, all the luxuries that a woman can want; and a
child, by-the-by, into the bargain."
"A child?"
"Yes; a child, born little more than a week ago."
"Not a boy, I hope?"
"No; a girl."
"I am glad of that. Those rich people always want the first-born
to be an heir. They will both be disappointed.
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