"Ah, Monsieur, I am very exacting, I have already told you. I will, however, grant you one hour, especially as time passes so rapidly in your company." Then she said, sadly, "Life is so short!"
"Yes, very short," said the Count; "especially when the career you promise me is pleasant—enough so to make one wish it would never end."
"I should so wish it, but you, perhaps, would think it tedious."
"It should be eternal," said Monte-Leone, "and eternity itself would not suffice for me to prove my tenderness. Besides, my purgatory here has been long enough. Have I not suffered all the tortures of hell since the day I renounced you? Ah!" said he, passionately, "you will never know how I loved, and how I now love you."
"Yes, yes," said Aminta, with a smile, "a heart like yours, I think, can love but once. I speak seriously—do you hear, sir? This word means much—so much that I tremble to think of it. You love me, and always will. I have faith in you."
"The future," said the Count, with an expression of sorrow which he could not conquer, "is your own—at least, if such is God's will, for mine is in your hands."
"What mean you?" said the Marquise, fearfully, and looking again with anxiety at the Count. "What trouble now menaces you? Would you leave Paris and myself? Well, that is a small affair. The country you dwell in shall be my country—the climate you select shall be mine. I will love the climate you love, even if it be as sombre and icy as our Italy is warm and glorious. The true country is where we find happiness."
"Dear Aminta," said the Count, with a delight he could not repress, "it would be terrible to die now."
Scorpione drew near the Count, and looked at him with a strange expression. One might have fancied that like the idiots of northern lands, who, we are assured, have a strange prescience of the future, this poor being was seized on by an unfortunate presentiment.
The words she had heard echoed sadly in Aminta's heart. "My friend," said she "for some time I have seen that you suffered. You are no longer happy in my presence. For pity's sake conceal nothing from me. Something terrible and unknown exists in your heart. To whom else but me would you confide it? Who would you permit to share my torments? Who should suffer with you? Tell me, I beseech you, for doubt is worse even than misery."