She was alarmed. "You are ill, you are ill, Checho?"
I said, "I stand at a death-bed. Love lies dying down there. Hush. We should be on our knees."
She was now weeping bitterly. "O lasso! O lasso! What have I done to you?"
"I fought in your honour, madam," I said, commanding myself, "I dared a murder in your defence. I would have stormed Hell's ramparts and put the baleful city to the sword in the same cause. From that accursed day on which I first saw you until now I have held you high before my face as the glory of womanhood. And now you repeat the slander for which that monster lay at my mercy. You repeat it—you allowed him to say it in your ear!"
She was pale, her eyes were wide; but she did not retreat. "But," she said, "but it is true, Checho. It is true. What he said to you was true— and now—" she frowned as she pondered out what was to come; clouds gathered over her beautiful, soulless face; she folded her arms, clenched her teeth and stormed at me.
"You fool, you fool, you fool!" she said fiercely, panting for breath with which to end me. "Oh, you dream-child, you moonraker, what are you doing in a world where men work for their pleasures and women have to cringe for the scraps? What was I to do when Porfirio shut me out of doors, and you—you, who had caused it, refused to come with me? Was I to spread my wings and fly straight into the lap of the Madonna? You would say so, I suppose! Your flights were very fine, but one cannot live on the wind. Any man but a poet would have picked me up at the door and taken care of me with a 'Come, my beloved, we will fly together.' But no! You were making eyes at the stars, and protesting that two of them were my eyes, and the moon my forehead. And then—O Dio! and then, when you found me again in Florence, what did you do? I was at my wit's ends, and you kissed my hands! There! That was all—all—all—on the word of a Christian! Did I not try to get more from you? Any one but a poet would know that I did. I heard your long poems, I touched you, I ran to meet you, I was kind, I was cross, I called you to me and then turned my back upon you. And then I found out, sir, what your baciar-di- mani, and bowings and reverences were worth. They were worth—myself. You had your Virginia snug at home, in a brocaded gown, and a fan, my word! Do you think I could not guess the truth of your story about her? Her honour indeed! What have such rubbish to do with honour? A Virginia, a baggage for your arms—and I, to have my hand kissed, and to yawn over dreary verses! By the Madonna, but I did my best to stop that play. Let me tell you, Don Francis, that it was I—I—I"—she struck her bosom with each naming of herself—"who told Semifonte where he could lay hands upon his chattel. You believed it was the count—it was I!" Quivering, breathing fire and anger, beautiful as a goddess and wicked as a fiend—what was I to say to this terrible witness? She had stayed for lack of breath, panting, tapping her foot, her bosom heaving like the sea under her close arms—and I was face to face with her, alone, with ruin between us. So with a stamp of her little foot, so with a flick of the fingers, it seems, she had broken her own image and killed love outright. There and then love died, and his funeral knell was the horrid barking laughter with which I greeted this end of her story.
"Madam," I said, when I had laughed hatefully and long, "I have robbed you of a lover, and you, in return, have robbed me of my love. You ought to be as much obliged to me as I am to you."
She scowled at me darkly. I think she would have stabbed me gladly, but just then the warder entered with my servant, and an official from the palace. This latter, with a profound salutation, handed me a letter from the count. Asking leave, I opened it and read as follows:
MY DEAR DON FRANCIS,—I have just learned, with concern, that you are in prison upon two charges—one false, and another which is trumpery. I hasten to assure you that orders have been given which will satisfy your sense of justice, and, I hope, improve your opinion of myself. I believe that by this time you will have been assured that it was not I who betrayed your confidences to Semifonte—who, between you and me, has got his deserts, or (according to the orthodox) must now be getting them. As for my more recent offence—the real ground of our little encounter—I can assure you of this, that if I ever make any such assertion again, and you again call me a liar, I shall not resent it; for a liar I shall be. I kiss your hands and am, with the most perfect esteem,
"My dear Don Francis,