“Oh, no: it is genuine; depend upon that. Listen to her laughter. Has it not the true ring? Indeed, Antonio, I confess astonishment at your wonderful progress. For an hour I have been aching to offer my felicitations.”
Tarsis bowed his acknowledgment, but with an air of slight incertitude.
“I fear,” he observed, “that your felicitations, in their kindly eagerness, come a trifle early.”
“Not a minute, I am sure,” Donna Beatrice insisted.
“Of course, I shall succeed in the end,” he said, with cold assurance.
“In the end? Oh, bravo!” she exclaimed, in a pretty effort of raillery. “This modesty! It is most amusing! Why, the end is already attained. Let me tell you something: At this moment your wife is exceedingly fond of you.”
“Do you know this?” he asked, a covetous gleam in his eye.
“As well as I know that you are her husband.”
“Has she told you so?”
“Yes.”