"What shall not be?" asked Violante, surprised by the cry and the action.
Beatrice paused; her breast heaved visibly under her dress.
"Stay," she said slowly. "As you say, we are both women of the same noble House; you would reject the suit of my brother, yet you have seen him; his the form to please the eye, his the arts that allure the fancy. He offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall. If I could remove the objections which your father entertains, prove that the count has less wronged him than he deems, would you still reject the rank and the wealth and the hand of Giulio Franzini?"
"Oh, yes, yes; were his hand a king's!"
"Still, then, as woman to woman—both, as you say, akin, and sprung from the same lineage—still, then, answer me, answer me, for you speak to one who has loved—Is it not that you love another? Speak."
"I do not know. Nay, not love,—it was a romance; it is a thing impossible. Do not question,—I cannot answer." And the broken words were choked by sudden tears.
Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her veil, and withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed."
Both were now long silent,—Violante with great difficulty recovering from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly across her breast.
Meanwhile the carriage had entered London; it passed the quarter in which Madame di Negra's house was situated; it rolled fast over a bridge; it whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of lanes, with tall blank dreary houses on either side. On it went, and on, till Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she said, drawing up the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange, ignoble suburb. "I shall be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech you!"
"We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together,—perhaps by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of-of the lover whom you rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible,'—yes, it is impossible!"
Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head. "Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised. How are you to serve my father, how restore him to his country? This is what you promised!"