"Basta!" replied Ferrari, with great reluctance. "I do not wish to keep you from the child. I am not jealous of il marito."
"You've no cause to be--I hate him."
"Look, then, the love I bear you, carissima mia. Though all your life I know. Though you have had husband and lover, yet I wish to make you mine."
"It is strange," said Mrs. Belswin, indifferently. "I am not a young woman; my good looks are going; my past life is not that of a saint; and yet you would marry me."
"Because I love thee, carissima," said Ferrari, taking her hand. "I have loved many before, but none like thee, bella demonia. Ah, Dio, thou hast the fierceness of the tiger within thee. The hot blood of Italy burns in thy veins, my Lucrezia Borgia. I am weary of tame women who weep and sigh ever. I am no cold Englishman, thou knowest. The lion seeks but the lioness, and so I come to thee for thy love, stella adorata."
He caressed her softly as he spoke these words in his musical voice, and the woman softened under his caress with feline grace. All the treachery and sleepiness of the panther was observable in this woman; but under the smoothness of her manner lay the fierceness of her savage nature, which was now being controlled by the master hand of the Italian.
"You will let me go to my daughter, then," she said in a soft, languid voice, her fierce eyes dulling under the mesmeric influence of his gaze.
"As you will. I can deny thee nothing, regina del mia vita."