“Yes, always,” she answered. “He is my life, my good, my thought. Even if I obeyed you he would be ever in my soul. To forbid me to marry him is to make me hate you.”
“You love us not!” cried Piombo.
“Oh!” said Ginevra, shaking her head.
“Well, then, forget him; be faithful to us. After we are gone—you understand?”
“Father, do you wish me to long for your death?” cried Ginevra.
“I shall outlive you. Children who do not honor their parents die early,” said the father, driven to exasperation.
“All the more reason why I should marry and be happy,” she replied.
This coolness and power of argument increased Piombo’s trouble; the blood rushed violently to his head, and his face turned purple. Ginevra shuddered; she sprang like a bird on her father’s knee, threw her arms around his neck, and caressed his white hair, exclaiming, tenderly:—
“Oh, yes, yes, let me die first! I could never survive you, my father, my kind father!”
“Oh! my Ginevra, my own Ginevra!” replied Piombo, whose anger melted under this caress like snow beneath the rays of the sun.