She paused a moment before she answered him.
“Yes,” she said; “it was other business than that.”
“And you have succeeded?”
“No; I have failed.”
He still held her hand; and she, though she was thus fencing with him, answering him with equivoques, felt that at last there was coming from him some word which would at least leave her no longer in doubt.
“And I too, have I failed?” he said. “When I left Venice I told myself heartily that I had failed.”
“You told yourself, then,” said she, “that Venetia never would be ceded. You know that I would not triumph over you, now that your cause has been lost. We Italians have not much cause for triumphing.”
“You will admit always that the fortresses have not been taken from us,” said the sore-hearted soldier.
“Certainly we shall admit that.”
“And my own fortress,—the stronghold that I thought I had made altogether mine,—is that, too, lost for ever to the poor German?”