Gelsomina listened in horror. Her artful cousin, who knew her character to the full extent that vice can comprehend innocence, watched her colorless cheek and contracting eye with secret triumph. At the first moment she had believed all that she insinuated, but second thoughts and a view of the visible distress of the frightened girl gave a new direction to her suspicions.
"But I tell thee nothing new," she quickly added. "I only regret thou should'st find me, where, no doubt, you expected to meet the Duca di Sant' Agata himself."
"Annina!—This from thee!"
"Thou surely didst not come to his palace to seek thy cousin!"
Gelsomina had long been familiar with grief, but until this moment she had never felt the deep humiliation of shame. Tears started from her eyes, and she sank back into a seat, in utter inability to stand.
"I would not distress thee out of bearing," added the artful daughter of the wine-seller. "But that we are both in the closet of the gayest cavalier of Venice, is beyond dispute."
"I have told thee that pity for another brought me hither."
"Pity for Don Camillo."
"For a noble lady—a young, a virtuous, and a beautiful wife—a daughter of the Tiepolo—of the Tiepolo, Annina!"
"Why should a lady of the Tiepolo employ a girl of the public prisons!"