"Oh, don't get angry again!" prayed Regina. "Why didn't I tell you? Because I didn't believe it."
"Do you mean you do believe it now? And that you waited to tell me till exactly now, to-day, at this moment?"
"I waited for an opportunity——"
"Nonsense! There was no lack of opportunities—worse ones even than this!"
"I repeat I don't study conventionality. Another woman would have made a scene, conjured you sentimentally to swear the truth on the head of our child. I don't do such things. Once only I was betrayed into a piece of dramatic nonsense. Once was enough!"
"What has this to do with it?" he said, angrily. "You could have spoken just as you are speaking now. Well, speak on. Say again what you said a minute ago. You said that you reproached yourself a thousand times as having been the cause of this—calumny. What did you mean?"
"You aren't listening. I reproached myself for having involuntarily given birth to this calumny, by constraining you to become that woman's slave. It was natural people should be suspicious. They are suspicious also of men much richer and much less attractive than you. Madame got rid of the others, Cavaliere R—— and Signor S——, to make a place for you. Naturally, those men spoke ill of you. Probably they started it. However," she continued, returning to her first point, "remember, Antonio, that I repented of my caprice. Remember well. I gave up all my pretensions and follies and came home to you because I had at last understood that your love was all I required for happiness."
"You said so, I know. But I didn't believe you. You said it because you pitied me. I didn't want your pity, Regina!" he went on, drawing a deep breath, as if struggling with a sob. "Now it is I who am playing the sentimental part, saying that you had humiliated me overmuch because I—had not tried to content you. Shall I follow your lead and say I am not like other men? Better or worse—who knows? I don't set up to be superior, as you do" (his voice shook with angry grief). "I'll call myself inferior, yes—a little bourgeois! How often have you not thrown that in my teeth! But for that very reason——What was I saying?"
Regina, overwhelmed herself by a strange mingling of grief and contempt, replied ironically—
"You were saying that we are two beings unlike the rest of the world, a hero and heroine of romance, in fact. Perhaps some day Gabrie will pick us up, as one picks mushrooms!"