"Conte!" she stammered. I held up my hand as a sign to her to be silent.

"I am perfectly aware," I went on in business-like accents--"of the disparity in years that exists between us. I have neither youth, health, or good looks to recommend me to you. Trouble and bitter disappointment have made me what I am. But I have wealth which is almost inexhaustible--I have position and influence--and beside these things"--and here I looked at her steadily, "I have an ardent desire to do justice to your admirable qualities, and to give you all you deserve. If you think you could be happy with me, speak frankly--I cannot offer you the pa.s.sionate adoration of a young man--my blood is cold and my pulse is slow--but what I CAN do, I will!"

Having spoken thus, I was silent--gazing at her intently. She paled and flushed alternately, and seemed for a moment lost in thought--then a sudden smile of triumph curved her mouth--she raised her large lovely eyes to mine, with a look of melting and wistful tenderness. She laid her needle-work gently down, and came close up to me--her fragrant breath fell warm on my cheek--her strange gaze fascinated me, and a sort of tremor shook my nerves.

"You mean," she said, with a tender pathos in her voice--"that you are willing to marry me, but that you do not really LOVE me?"

And almost appealingly she laid her white hand on my shoulder--her musical accents were low and thrilling--she sighed faintly. I was silent--battling violently with the foolish desire that had sprung up within me, the desire to draw this witching fragile thing to my heart, to cover her lips with kisses--to startle her with the pa.s.sion of my embraces! But I forced the mad impulse down and stood mute. She watched me--slowly she lifted her hand from where it had rested, and pa.s.sed it with a caressing touch through my hair.

"No--you do not really LOVE me," she whispered--"but I will tell you the truth--_I_ LOVE YOU!"

And she drew herself up to her full height and smiled again as she uttered the lie. I knew it was a lie--but I seized the hand whose caresses stung me, and held it hard, as I answered:

"YOU love ME? No, no--I cannot believe it--it is impossible!"

She laughed softly. "It is true though," she said, emphatically, "the very first time I saw you I knew I should love you! I never even liked my husband, and though in some things you resemble him, you are quite different in others--and superior to him in every way. Believe it or not as you like, you are the only man in all the world I have ever loved!"

And she made the a.s.sertion unblushingly, with an air of conscious pride and virtue. Half stupefied at her manner, I asked:

"Then you will be my wife?"

"I will!" she answered--"and tell me--your name is Cesare, is it not?"

"Yes," I said, mechanically.

"Then, CESARE" she murmured, tenderly, "I will MAKE you love me very much!"

And with a quick lithe movement of her supple figure, she nestled softly against me, and turned up her radiant glowing face.

"Kiss me!" she said, and waited. As one in a whirling dream, I stooped and kissed those false sweet lips! I would have more readily placed my mouth upon that of a poisonous serpent! Yet that kiss roused a sort of fury in me. I slipped my arms round her half-reclining figure, drew her gently backward to the couch she had left, and sat down beside her, still embracing her. "You really love me?" I asked almost fiercely.

"Yes!"

"And I am the first man whom you have really cared for?

"You are!"

"You never liked Ferrari?"

"Never!"

"Did he ever kiss you as I have done?"

"Not once!"

G.o.d! how the lies poured forth! a very cascade of them! and they were all told with such an air of truth! I marveled at the ease and rapidity with which they glided off this fair woman's tongue, feeling somewhat the same sense of stupid astonishment a rustic exhibits when he sees for the first time a conjurer drawing yards and yards of many-colored ribbon out of his mouth. I took up the little hand on which the wedding-ring _I_ had placed there was still worn, and quietly slipped upon the slim finger a circlet of magnificent rose-brilliants. I had long carried this trinket about with me in expectation of the moment that had now come. She started from my arms with an exclamation of delight.

"Oh, Cesare! how lovely! How good you are to me!"

And leaning toward me, she kissed me, then resting against my shoulder, she held up her hand to admire the flash of the diamonds in the light.

Suddenly she said, with some anxiety in her tone:

"You will not tell Guido? not yet?"

"No," I answered; "I certainly will not tell him till he returns.

Otherwise he would leave Rome at once, and we do not want him back just immediately, do we?" And I toyed with her rippling gold tresses half mechanically, while I wondered within myself at the rapid success of my scheme. She, in the meantime grew pensive and abstracted, and for a few moments we were both silent. If she had known! I thought, if she could have imagined that she was encircled by the arm of HER OWN HUSBAND, the man whom she had duped and wronged, the poor fool she had mocked at and despised, whose life had been an obstruction in her path, whose death she had been glad of! Would she have smiled so sweetly? Would she have kissed me then?

She remained leaning against me in a reposeful att.i.tude for some moments, ever and anon turning the ring I had given her round and round upon her finger. By and by she looked up.

"Will you do me one favor?" she asked, coaxingly; "such a little thing--a trifle! but it would give me such pleasure!"

"What is it?" I asked; "it is you to command and I to obey!"

"Well, to take off those dark gla.s.ses just for a minute! I want to see your eyes."

I rose from the sofa quickly, and answered her with some coldness.

"Ask anything you like but that, mia bella. The least light on my eyes gives me the most acute pain--pain that irritates my nerves for hours afterward. Be satisfied with me as I am for the present, though I promise you your wish shall be gratified--"

"When?" she interrupted me eagerly. I stooped and kissed her hand.

"On the evening of our marriage day," I answered.

She blushed and turned away her head coquettishly.

"Ah! that is so long to wait!" she said, half pettishly.

"Not very long, I HOPE," I observed, with meaning emphasis. "We are now in November. May I ask you to make my suspense brief? to allow me to fix our wedding for the second month of the new year?"

"But my recent widowhood!--Stella's death!"--she objected faintly, pressing a perfumed handkerchief gently to her eyes.

"In February your husband will have been dead nearly six months," I said, decisively; "it is quite a sufficient period of mourning for one so young as yourself. And the loss of your child so increases the loneliness of your situation, that it is natural, even necessary, that you should secure a protector as soon as possible. Society will not censure you, you may be sure--besides, _I_ shall know how to silence any gossip that savors of impertinence."

A smile of conscious triumph parted her lips.

"It shall be as you wish," she said, demurely; "if you, who are known in Naples as one who is perfectly indifferent to women like now to figure as an impatient lover. I shall not object!"

And she gave me a quick glance of mischievous amus.e.m.e.nt from under the languid lids of her dreamy dark eyes. I saw it, but answered, stiffly:

"YOU are aware, contessa, and I am also aware that I am not a 'lover'

according to the accepted type, but that I am impatient I readily admit."

"And why?" she asked.

"Because," I replied, speaking slowly and emphatically; "I desire you to be mine and mine only, to have you absolutely in my possession, and to feel that no one can come between us, or interfere with my wishes concerning you."