“Yes; since you ask me, I confess it without any hesitation. Love does not always, among its privileges, possess the faculty of seeing clearly. Therefore I have been mistrustful of mine, and have not allowed it to influence me in the least in studying you.”
I made a slight gesture of surprise.
“Listen, Ginevra. One never knows what a young soldier is till his first battle. Neither can one tell what a young woman of your age is till she appears on the terrible battle-field of the fashionable world. But if I have any faculty, it is, I believe, that of not being deceived in a study of this kind. Be assured, Ginevra, that from this time I shall watch you no more.”
“Then, Lorenzo,” said I, somewhat hurt, “you really watched me through suspicion, and all this time was necessary to convince you I am to be trusted?”
“I wished to see you under fire,” said he, resuming his jesting tone. “Do not complain of this, ma belle Ginevra. You have come out of the trial victorious—victorious to such a degree that, though I thought you more charming to-day than ever, I have not once thought of watching you. And yet,” continued [pg 745] he in a tone he tried to render playful, but which was bitter in spite of himself, “those flowers that are so becoming to you are not all calculated to reassure me.” And plucking a red carnation from my wreath, he held it up before me with a smile that seemed cruel, and was about to put it in his button-hole when, pale as death, I snatched it from his hand, and threw it as far as I could.
“Lorenzo!” I said in a trembling voice, “you are ungenerous!... and you are very unjust!...”
I should have done better to say, as well as think, that he did not know what he was doing. No; he little knew what had taken place in my soul since the day he thus recalled, which was so sanguinary, so fatal in its results. No; he could not conceive the intolerable pain he gave me by thus suddenly reviving my regret, my sorrow, and my shame!...
He could read my heart to a certain extent, but how far he was—alas! how incapable he was—of penetrating to the bottom of my soul, and fully comprehending, or even suspecting, the radical change which that one day had wrought in my nature.
He saw with surprise and alarm my agitation and the sudden paleness of my face, and endeavored to calm me; but I noticed he was at once anxious and annoyed about the emotion he had excited.
I made a violent effort to regain my self-control, and soon succeeded in allaying the throbbing of my heart. But I felt as if an icy wind had crossed my path, chilling too soon the opening flowers of my dawning happiness, and causing them to droop their heads.