“‘There was talk of that in the house to-day, signor, and they said that you went in Passion Week, and that the year would be nearly run before you came back.’
“‘They said that? Heaven, what chatterers! To-morrow I will put plaisters on their tongues. You did not believe the tale?’
“‘I believe nothing but that which you tell me.’
“‘And if I stayed away until the year had run?’
“‘Oh, I would wait and think always, and run every morning to the Jajce road and say: “To-day he will come back to me!”’
“‘You would like to go to Vienna, Christine?’
“‘Oh, I have no thought. When I was a child it seemed to me that they had carried me out of the world, and that somewhere, far off, there was a great city in which all the happiness and all the love of the world lay. Every day I used to say to myself: “God will take me across the mountains, and I shall hear and see the things of which I dream.” I thought that there would be no night then, and that none would starve and none be poor, and that golden clouds would shine down upon us from the sky. Madonna mia, what a silly dream it was! Yet I had none to tell me of my fault. Now I think of it no longer; I have no wish. The past is all a shadow.’
“The Count, watching her keenly as her torrent of words was poured out, did not answer her at once, but holding both her hands in his, he fell to asking himself what the capital would say if he took there as his wife this little barbarian, so simple, in many ways so ignorant, yet so powerful to hold the heart and win the love of men. He could not hide from himself the fact that the whole city would find merriment in the discovery—yet that to him personally was of the smallest concern. It was his joy always to trample upon the conceits and opinions which stood between him and his few pleasures. Had there been any motive for his pride to lead him, he would have been found among the chiefs of Austria long ago. But for twenty years he had looked at life through the glasses of his irony and contempt, and had scorned the ambition of place as the ambition of fools. Now, however, he began to regard things from a new point of view. He remembered the conventions of men, not for his own sake, but for the sake of Christine. There were moments when he could scarce believe that this dark-eyed little Italian had really entered into his life so entirely that the world was empty for him when he did not hear her voice. ‘She shall never be the sport of fools,’ he said, ‘but shall find a home here. Let them laugh themselves hoarse—but I will cut out the tongue of any man that insults her. She has the gentleness of a child and the grace of ten women who prate of birth.’
“This was his reasoning while she sat at his knees in the great vaulted library, and the light of the fire shone red and golden upon her face. But he hid from her much of that which was in his mind.
“‘Some day, Christine,’ he said, ‘we will go and see your great city together—but not yet. To-morrow I leave you; but when I come back, in twenty days’ time, you shall be alone no more. You still wish it, little one?’