"It is such a long story, Hugo," said Beltrami, a trifle maliciously, "that we must really have some wine."
"I do not want wine; I want 'The Thousand and Second Night.'"
"Bene! you shall have both."
The Marchese arose and summoned his servant, who brought up a bottle of Barbera, that rough-tasting wine which is so pleasant and cool in hot weather. For the sake of companionship I took some with Beltrami, and haying thus attended to the duties of hospitality, he signed to his servant to withdraw, and without further preamble began his tale.
"Eh, Hugo, mon ami," he said, settling himself comfortably in his chair, "this would be a charming story for M. Bourget, that modern Balzac, who analyses the hearts of the ladies of this generation in so masterly a fashion. Dame! I would like to give him Madame Morone's to dissect--he'd find some strange things there. Yet--would you believe it?--this woman, worthy to be a sister of Lucrezia Borgia, came out of a convent to marry my poor friend Morone."
"You knew him then?"
"Ma foi! I should think so, for many years. People said he was mad, but the only mad action he committed, to my mind, was in marrying Giulietta Rossana."
"Yet you propose to do the same thing?"
"True, but I possess a means of taming this tigress of which the unfortunate Giorgio Morone knew nothing. He was a great chemist, this poor Count, and particularly fond of toxicology, a dangerous science with such a wife, as he found out to his cost. Cospetto! I would not care myself about forging weapons for another to use against me, but that is exactly what Morone did."
"She poisoned him?"