'Who could be always prudent at my years?' said the miller's young wife. 'Tasso is a brute, and a fool too. One day he will drive me out of myself; I tell him so.'
'That is not the way to make him better,' said Gesualdo. 'I am sorry you do not see it. The man loves you, and he feels he is old, and he knows that you do not care; that knowledge is always like a thorn in his flesh; he feels you do not care.'
'How should he suppose that I care?' said Generosa, passionately. 'I hated him always; he is as old as my father; he expects me to be shut up like a nun; if he had his own way I should never stir out of the house. Does one marry for that?'
'One should marry to do one's duty,' said Gesualdo, timidly; for he felt the feebleness of his counsels and arguments against the force and the warmth and the self-will of a woman, conscious of her beauty, and her power, and her lovers, and moved by all the instincts of vanity and passion.
'We had a terrible scene an hour ago,' said Generosa, passing over what she did not choose to answer. 'It cost me much not to put a knife into him. It was about Falko. There was nothing new, but he thought there was. I fear he will do Falko mischief one day; he threatened it; it is not the first time.'
'That is very grave,' said Gesualdo, growing paler as he heard. 'My daughter, you are more in error than Tassilo. After all, he has his rights. Why do you not send the young man away? He would obey you.'
'He would obey me in anything else, not in that,' said the woman, with the little conscious smile of one who knows her own power. 'He would not go away. Indeed, why should he go away? He has his employment here. Why should he go away because Tasso is a jealous fool?'
'Is he such a fool?' said Gesualdo, and he raised his eyes suddenly and looked straight into hers.
Generosa coloured through her warm, tanned skin. She was silent.
'It has not gone as far as you think,' she muttered, after a pause.