“Good Heavens!” he cried, starting up. “No, that can’t be the truth! Gemma cannot be the notorious Contessa Funaro!”
“If you doubt me, go out to Italy again and make inquiries,” the eccentric old lady answered calmly.
“But the Countess Funaro has the most unenviable reputation of any person in Italy. I’ve heard hundreds of extraordinary stories regarding her.”
“And the latest is your own interesting experience—eh!”
“I—I really can’t believe it,” Armytage said, dumbfounded.
“No; I don’t expect you do. She’s so amazingly clever that she can cause her dupes to believe in her absolutely. Her face is so innocent that one would never believe her capable of such heartless actions as are attributed to her.”
“But what experience have you personally had of her?” he inquired, still dubious. He knew that this elderly woman of the world was utterly unscrupulous.
“I met her in Venice last year,” her ladyship said. “All Venice was acquainted with her deliciously original countenance. Her notoriety was due to her pretty air of astonishment, the purity of her blue eyes, and the expression of chaste innocence which she can assume when it so pleases her—an expression which contrasts powerfully with her true nature, shameless creature that she is.”
“And are you absolutely positive that the woman I love as Gemma Fanetti is none other than the Contessa Funaro, the owner of the great historic Funaro palace in Florence, and the Villa Funaro at Ardenza?”
“I have already told you all I know.”