“They love me in very different ways,” said he, as he finished his toilet preparatory to going out. “Marietta Taliazuchi with the humility of a slave, Louise du Trouffle with the grateful passion of an elderly coquette. It would be a problem for a good arithmetician to solve, which of these two loves would weigh most. Marietta’s love is certainly the more pleasant and comfortable, because the more humble. Like a faithful dog she lies at my feet; if I push her from me, she comes back, lies humbly down, and licks the foot that kicked her. Away, then, to her, to my tender Marietta.”
Hiding his letters in his breast, he took his hat and hastened in the direction of Marietta’s dwelling. She received him in her usual impassioned manner; she told him how she had suffered in their long separation; how the thought that he might be untrue to her, that he loved another had filled her with anguish.
Ranuzi laughed. “Still the same old song, Marietta; always full of doubt and distrust? Does the lioness still thirst after my blood? would she lacerate my faithless heart?”
Kneeling, as she often did, at his feet, she rested her arms on his knees; then dropping her head on her folded hands, she looked up at him.
“Can you swear that you are true to me?” said she, in a strange, sharp tone. “Can you swear that you love no other woman but me?”
“Yes, I can swear it!” said he, laughing.
“Then do so,” cried she, earnestly.
“Tell me an oath and I will repeat it after you.”
She looked at him firmly for several moments, and strange shadows crossed her emotional countenance.
Ranuzi did not perceive them; he was too inattentive, too confident of success, to entertain doubt or distrust.