"One would think you were seeking excuses for staying away from me," she said to him at length with extreme affection: "No sooner do you come back from Belgirate than you find a reason for going off again."
"Here is a fine opportunity for speaking," thought Fabrizio. "But by the lake I was a trifle mad; I did not realise, in my enthusiasm for sincerity, that my compliment ended in an impertinence. It was a question of saying: 'I love you with the most devoted friendship, etc., etc., but my heart is not susceptible to love.' Is not that as much as to say: 'I see that you are in love with me: but take care, I cannot pay you back in the same coin.' If it is love that she feels, the Duchessa may be annoyed at its being guessed, and she will be revolted by my impudence if all that she feels for me is friendship pure and simple . . . and that is one of the offences people never forgive."
While he weighed these important thoughts in his mind, Fabrizio, quite unconsciously, was pacing up and down the drawing-room with the grave air, full of dignity, of a man who sees disaster staring him in the face.
The Duchessa gazed at him with admiration; this was no longer the child she had seen come into the world, this was no longer the nephew always ready to obey her; this was a serious man, a man whom it would be delicious to make fall in love with her. She rose from the ottoman on which she was sitting, and, flinging herself into his arms in a transport of emotion:
"So you want to run away from me?" she asked him.
"No," he replied with the air of a Roman Emperor, "but I want to act wisely."
This speech was capable of several interpretations; Fabrizio did not feel that he had the courage to go any farther and to run the risk of wounding this adorable woman. He was too young, too susceptible to sudden emotion; his brain could not supply him with any elegant turn of speech to give expression to what he wished to say. By a natural transport, and in defiance of all reason, he took this charming woman in his arms and smothered her in kisses. At that moment the Conte's carriage could be heard coming into the courtyard, and almost immediately the Conte himself entered the room; he seemed greatly moved.
"You inspire very singular passions," he said to Fabrizio, who stood still, almost dumbfoundered by this remark.
"The Archbishop had this evening the audience which His Serene Highness grants him every Thursday; the Prince has just been telling me that the Archbishop, who seemed greatly troubled, began with a set speech, learned by heart, and extremely clever, of which at first the Prince could understand nothing at all. Landriani ended by declaring that it was important for the Church in Parma that Monsignor Fabrizio del Dongo should be appointed his First Vicar General, and, in addition, as soon as he should have completed his twenty-fourth year, his Coadjutor with eventual succession.
"The last clause alarmed me, I must admit," said the Conte: "it is going a little too fast, and I was afraid of an outburst from the Prince; but he looked at me with a smile, and said to me in French: 'Ce sont là de vos coups, monsieur!'