“Per Bacco! I never thought of that; but what, under any circumstances, would have induced you to go back again?”
“I fell in love!”
Caffarelli pushed the lamp aside to have a better view of his friend, and then laughed long and heartily. “Maso Arretini used often to say, 'Maitland will die a monk;' and I begin now to believe it is quite possible.”
“Maso was a fool for his prediction. Had I meant to be a monk, I 'd have taken to the cowl when I had youth and vigor and dash in me, the qualities a man ought to bring to a new career. Ha! what is there so strange in the fact that I should fall in love?”
“Don't ask as if you were offended with me, and I 'll try and tell you.”
“I am calm; go on.”
“First of all, Maitland, no easy conquest would satisfy your vanity, and you'd never have patience to pursue a difficult one. Again, the objects that really have an attraction for you—such as Ambition and Power—have the same fascination for you that high play has for a gambler. You do not admit nor understand any other; and, last of all,—one is nothing if not frank in these cases,—you 'd never believe any woman was lovely enough, clever enough, or graceful enough to be worthy of Norman Maitland.”
“The candor has been perfect. I 'll try and imitate it,” said Maitland, filling his glass slowly, and slightly wetting his lips. “All you have just said, Carlo, would be unimpeachable if all women were your countrywomen, and if love were what it is understood to be in an Italian city; but there are such things in this dreary land of fog and snow-drift as women who do not believe intrigue to be the chief object of human existence, who have fully as much self-respect as they have coquetry, and who would regard no addresses so offensive as those that would reduce them to the level of a class with which they would not admit companionship.”
“Bastions of virtue that I never ask to lay siege to!” broke out the other, laughing.
“Don't believe it, Carlo. You'd like the campaign well, if you only knew how to conduct it. Why, it's not more than a week ago I quitted a country-house where there were more really pretty women than you could number in the crowd of one of your ball-rooms on either Arno or Tiber.”