And in less than an hour the strangers from Venice heard two voices below in the entrance of the locanda inquiring for two Venetian ladies who had recently arrived in Ravenna.
Two voices!--for it had so happened that when the servant, whom the Marchese Lamberto had sent to his nephew to request him to undertake this little commission for him, found the Marchese Ludovico at the door of the Circolo, the Signore Conte Leandro Lombardoni was lounging there with him.
"Bah! what a bore?
My uncle is always making himself the maestro di casa, the manager, the protector, the servant of all the world.

Tell the Marchese I'll go directly," he said to the servant; then added to his companion, "Come, Leandro, don't desert me! Let's go together and see what these Venetian women want." "I ought to go to the Contessa Giulia at two.

She'll be waiting for me, and will be furious if I disappoint her.

Never mind, what must be, must be! I Tre Re! Ugh, what a distance; why, it is at the other end of the town ?" "Never mind, come along; it will do you good to walk half a mile for once and away," returned Ludovico, who knew perfectly well how much to believe about the Contessa Giulia's despair at his friend's non-appearance.
Thus the two young men went together to the locanda de' Tre Re to execute the commission entrusted to his nephew by the Marchese Lamberto.
"Yes," said a slatternly girl, who came forth from some back region at the call of the two young men, and who stared at them with an offensive mixture of surprise and understanding interest, when they inquired for the ladies recently arrived from Venice.

"Yes, they were upstairs, on the right hand, in No.