The Princess, though not always courageous, was naturally overbearing and rather quarrelsome, and her temper rose viciously as soon as the restraint which an artificial situation had imposed was removed.
'I really think you should not have kept me in doubt so long,' she said. 'After playing nurse to me in my own house, you can hardly have taken me for another person. But as for you, your dress has changed you so completely, and you look so much older than any one would have thought possible, that you need not be surprised if I was not quite sure it was really you!'
Her niece listened unmoved. A trained nurse, even if she be a nun, may learn a good deal about human nature in five years, and Sister Giovanna was naturally quick to perceive and slow to forget. She understood now, much better than the Princess supposed.
'I am not at all surprised,' she said, almost smiling, 'and it cannot possibly matter.'
The older woman began to think that her recollections of what she thought she had said in her delirium were nothing more than the record of a dream, but the fear of having betrayed herself still haunted her, although four months had passed, and the present opportunity of setting her mind at rest might not return. Rather than let it slip away she would be bold, if not brave.
'And besides,' she said, as if finishing her last speech, 'I believe I was more or less delirious during most of the time that you were with me. Was I not?'
Sister Giovanna was sorely tempted to speak out. But though it would be so easy to humiliate the woman who had injured her, it looked too much like vengeance; and she remembered how she had told the sick woman that she forgave, with all her heart, meaning what she said, but it had been hard to keep the passion-flower of forgiveness from fading as soon as it had opened.
'You were rather quiet on the whole,' she answered with truth, and so calmly that the Princess was relieved. 'I wish all my patients were as submissive.'
'Really? How delightful! No one ever said I was a submissive person, I am sure!'
'You were very much so. And now, since your friend has not come yet, and you will wish to wait for him, I must ask you to let me leave you, for I am on duty and must not stay here too long. Should you like to see the Mother Superior?'