"Heartless," Laura answered, smiling at Anna, for whom this joking was a martyrdom.
"Noble but heartless lady!" repeated Cesare.
"Would you have wished me to be otherwise?" demanded Anna, quickly, looking into her husband's eyes.
"No; I should not have wished it," was his prompt rejoinder.
In spite of this downright pronouncement, in which her husband, for all his cynicism, asserted his invincible right to her fidelity—in spite of the fact that Cesare appeared to watch the comings and goings of Caracciolo—he openly jested with his wife's follower about his courtship.
"Well, how is it getting on, Luigi?" he asked one day.
"Badly, Cesare. It couldn't be worse," responded Luigi, with a melancholy accent that was only half a feint.
"And yet I left the field free to you."
"Yes; you are as generous as the emperors your namesakes; but when you have captured a province you know how to keep it, whether you are far or near."
"Men of my age always do, Luigi."