If he had left it wholly in the hands of his nephew, and the other young men, it might have been the means of starting the Signora Lalli amiss on her Ravenna career in a manner he particularly wished to avoid.

After that little hint on the subject, which the impresario had given him, he was specially desirous that anything like an occasion for scandal should be avoided in all that concerned the sojourn of the Signora Lalli in Ravenna.

He, the Marchese Lamberto, the intimate friend of the Cardinal, and the most pre-eminently respectable man in Ravenna, had had a very large--certainly the largest--share in bringing this woman to the city; and he was anxious that the engagement should lead to no unpleasant results of any kind.
It might be very possibly that the little matters at which the impresario had hinted, were not altogether calumnious;--that the lady might be one of those members of her profession who seek other triumphs besides those of her own scenic kingdom, and the story of whose lives in the different cities they visit is not confined to the walls and to the records of the theatre.

It might very well be that a little caution and looking after was needed in the matter, It would be as well, therefore, to take the thing in hand at once in a manner that should put the lady on a right course from the beginning;--all which could be excellently well accomplished by at once taking her, as it were, into his own hands; and would, on the other hand, be endangered by throwing her from the first into those of the youngsters who purposed going out to meet her.
So the Marchese sacrificed himself; put off the anatomist and the musician; spent the morning in arranging all the details of the proposed cavalcade with the young men who were to compose it; and at two o'clock got into his open carriage to drive out towards Bagnacavallo.

The young Barone Manutoli and Ludovico were in the carriage with him.