“It is the blackest of affronts this,” was her comment, that seemed at once singular and sweet to her hearer.
“D'accord,” said Count Victor, but that was to himself. He was quite agreed that the Chamberlain's attentions, though well meant, were not for a good woman to plume herself on.
The flageolet spoke again—that curious unfinished air. Never before had it seemed so haunting and mysterious; a mingling of reproaches and command. It barely reached them where they sat together listening, a fairy thing and fascinating, yet it left the woman cold. And soon the serenade entirely ceased. Olivia recovered herself; Count Victor was greatly pleased.
“I hope that is the end of it,” she said, with a sigh of relief.
“Alas, poor Orpheus! he returns to Thrace, where perhaps Madame Petullo may lead the ladies in tearing him to pieces!”
“Once that hollow reed bewitched me, I fancy,” said she with a shy air of confession; “now I cannot but wonder and think shame at my blindness, for yon Orpheus has little beyond his music that is in any way admirable.”
“And that the gift of nature, a thing without his own deserving, like his—like his regard for you, which was inevitable, Mademoiselle Olivia.”
“And that the hollowest of all,” she said, turning the evidence of it in her pocket again. “He will as readily get over that as over his injury from you.”
“Perhaps 'tis so. The most sensitive man, they say, does not place all his existence on love; 'tis woman alone who can live and die in the heart.”
“There I daresay you speak from experience,” said Olivia, smiling, but impatient that he should find a single plea in favour of a wretch he must know so well.