"It is I who should apologize for waking you," said Don Agostino; "but it is past twelve o'clock, and my housekeeper is a tyrant. She is afraid her dishes will be spoiled!"
Silvio sprang from the bed. "I will be ready in a few minutes," he said; and before Don Agostino could beg him not to hurry himself, he had filled a basin with cold water, into which he plunged his face as a preliminary to further ablutions.
In ten minutes he had rejoined Don Agostino in the little dining-room, and the two sat down to the dinner which Ernana had produced, not without some grumbling at the delay, which, she declared, had turned the omelette into a piece of donkey's hide.
Silvio did ample justice to her cookery, however, and indeed Don Agostino's house-keeper looked with scarcely concealed admiration and approval at him as she served the various dishes. She also wondered what this _bel giovanotto_ was doing at Montefiano, and several times came very near to asking him the question, being only restrained therefrom by the thought that she would learn all she wanted to know from Don Agostino so soon as the visitor should have departed.
After dinner, Don Agostino produced a bottle of old wine--such wine as seldom comes to the market in Italy, and which, could it only travel, would put the best French vintages to shame. Ernana served the coffee and then departed to her kitchen, and Don Agostino proceeded to prepare cigars by duly roasting the ends in the flame of a candle before handing one of them to his guest to smoke.
"And so," he observed, presently, "you actually live in the Palazzo Acorari at Rome. Your father, no doubt, knows the princess and Donna Bianca?"
Silvio shook his head. "No," he replied. "You must remember--" he added, and then paused, abruptly.
Don Agostino blew a ring of smoke into the air.
"What must I remember?" he asked, smiling at Silvio's obvious embarrassment.
"You know my father's opinions," continued Silvio, "and perhaps you have read some of his works. He is not--I speak with all respect--of the _Neri_, and Princess Montefiano is, they say, a very good Catholic."
Don Agostino laughed. "Ah, I forgot," he said. "No, I never looked upon your father as a good Catholic. It really was never any business of mine whether he was so or not. But the princess--yes, I believe she is very strict in her opinions, and your father is, very naturally, not beloved by the Vatican party."