“Carlo, that is unkind, almost unbrotherly. Was he not your friend, and were not you the first to tell us how good he is? And he is good; no man can be better.”
“He is an honest young man,” said the Signora.
“He is Austrian to the backbone,” said Carlo.
“Of course he is,” said Nina. “What should he be?”
“And will you be Austrian?” her brother asked.
“Not if I must be an enemy of Italy,” Nina said. “If an Austrian may be a friend to Italy, then I will be an Austrian. I wish to be Hubert’s wife. Of course I shall be an Austrian if he is my husband.”
“Then I trust that you may never be his wife,” said Carlo.
By the middle of May Carlo Pepé and Captain von Vincke had absolutely quarrelled. They did not speak, and Von Vincke had been ordered by the brother not to show himself at the house in the Campo San Luca.
Every German in Venice had now become more Austrian than before, and every Venetian more Italian. Even our friend the captain had come to believe in the war.
Not only Venice but Italy was in earnest, and Captain von Vincke foresaw, or thought that he foresaw, that a time of wretched misery was coming upon that devoted town. He would never give up Nina, but perhaps it might be well that he should cease to press his suit till he might be enabled to do so with something of the éclat of Austrian success.