Nera did not withdraw her hand. Her eyelids dropped, and she replied, softly:
"Help you? Oh! so willingly. Could you see my heart you would understand me."
She stopped.
"You can make all right," urged Nobili, maddened by her seductions.
Again that waltz was buzzing in his ears. Nobili was about to clasp her in his arms, and ask her he knew not what, when Nera rose, and seated herself upon a chair opposite to him.
"You leave me," cried Nobili, piteously, seizing her dress. "That is not helping me."
"I must know what you want," she answered, settling the folds of her dress about her. "Of course, in making this marriage, you have weighed all the consequences? I take that for granted."
As Nera spoke she leaned her head upon her hand; the rich beauty of her face was brought under the lamp's full light.
"I thought I had," was Nobili's reply, recalled by her movement to himself, and speaking with more composure—"I thought I had—but within the last three hours every thing is changed. I have been insulted at the club."
"Ah!—you must expect that sort of thing if you marry Enrica Guinigi.
That is inevitable."