She did not finish the sentence, for it seemed to her selfish to throw her right to happiness into the scale against Gianluca’s life.  But she could not understand him.

“It is hard to do, for all that,” he answered indistinctly.  “I have said too much,” he continued, stopping before her.  “I meant to do the best I could.  Perhaps I should have said nothing.  This is no time to stop at trifles.  The man is dying, and I have a right to say that I believe you might save his life—­and a right to beg you to try.  You have the right to refuse, to question, to doubt—­all rights that are a woman’s in such a case.  As for me—­there is no question of me in all this.  Since I must be here for him, since I have displeased you from the first, since you do not like me, look upon me as a necessary evil, do not consider my existence, think of me as a man who loves your best friend and is giving all he has—­to save him.”

“All you have,” repeated Veronica, thoughtfully, but without a question.

“Yes!” he exclaimed.

The single word was spoken with a sort of passion, as though it meant much to him.  She liked him better now than when he walked up and down, giving her incoherent advice.  Whatever he might mean, it was something which had power to move him.

“You are mistaken,” she said.  “I like you very much.”

“You—­Princess!” His surprise was genuine.  “You have not made me think so,” he added in a tone of wonder.

“Nor have you made me think that you liked me,” she answered.

“Gianluca thought I did not,” said Taquisara, slowly, as though speaking to himself.

Veronica smiled.

“When I first knew you, when we talked together at the villa on that morning before Christmas, I liked you better than him,” she said.

He started sharply.

“Please—­” He checked himself almost before the one word had escaped his lips.

“Please—­what?” she asked, naturally enough.

“Nothing.”

His face quickened as he walked again, and she watched him curiously.

“As friends of one friend, we must be friends,” she said, after a pause.  “We have spoken frankly to-night, both of us.  It is much better.  With his life between us we can say things, perhaps, which neither of us would have said before.  You are doing all you can.  You ask me to do more than I can—­I think.  As for his life—­let us not talk of what may happen.  I think of it enough, as it is.”

She turned as she spoke the last words, for she did not trust her face.  But he heard the true note of sorrow in her tone.

“Is it possible that you do not love him a little?” he asked, in a low voice.

“It is true,” she answered mechanically, as though hearing him in a dream.  “I could never love him.”

Then, all at once she straightened herself and left the chimneypiece.

“We must not talk of these things any more,” she said.  “Good night.  We understand each other, do we not?”