“Carissimo,” she said tensely, “if you ever love any other woman——­”

“I love you,” he said, against her lips; “let there be no doubt of that.”  And there was a long silence between them.

Giovanni was not one of those who can withstand a woman of beauty.  He loved La Favorita passionately; she perhaps more than any one else could hold him—­a Griselda one day, a fury the next, but always alive and always beautiful.

Yet he might have indulged his curiosity as to what she would do if seriously aroused to jealousy, had it not been for his innate hatred of all exhibitions of feeling, which seemed to him bourgeois.  He knew that if the dancer had an idea that he might be falling in love with Nina, she would be capable of any scandal.  On the other hand, he could not imagine Favorita’s being jealous of the American girl.  He had often congratulated himself that she was not jealous of her only real rival, the Contessa Potensi, his devotion to whom, however, he had managed to keep so quiet that very few persons in Rome had a suspicion of it.

The contessa, on the other hand, looked upon Giovanni’s attention to the dancer as an artifice practised solely on her account, so that the world would the less suspect his attachment to herself.  Neither woman had until now felt any jealousy of Nina.  To their Italian temperament she had seemed too cold a type, too antipathetic, to be a danger.  The contessa was quite willing to have Giovanni marry the heiress, for she never doubted that the end of the honeymoon would find him tied more securely than ever to her own footstool.

Giovanni, at present, with his arms about the dancer, was raining a succession of kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her hair.  He could feel that she was all on edge about something, but, man-like, he preferred to keep things on the surface and not stir depths that might be turbulent.  His efforts, however, were of small avail.

“Swear to me by the Madonna, and by your ancestors, that you will not marry!”

With sudden coldness Giovanni drew away from her.  He let both arms hang limp at his sides.  “Why let this thought come always between us!” Then, exasperated into taking up the discussion, he crossed his arms and faced her:  “We might as well have this out.  I am not engaged—­I swear that; but whether I ever shall be or not, you have no cause for jealousy.  Marriage in my world, you know very well, is not a matter of inclination, but of advantageous arrangement.  There is every reason why I ought to marry, and if that is the case why not one as well as another?  My brother has no children; I am the last of my name.”

With a cry she flung her arms around his neck and broke into a storm of weeping.  “You shan’t marry her!  You shan’t.  She shall not have your children for you!”

But Giovanni grew impatient.  He unclasped her hands and pushed her away.  “If you make these scenes all the time, I won’t come near you!  Please, once for all, let us have this ended.  If there is one thing I can’t endure, it is a woman who cries.  Here, take my handkerchief.  Come now—­that is right, be reasonable.”  His tone modified, and he lightly and more affectionately laid his hand upon her shoulder.  “Come here a minute, I want to show you a picture.”  He led her, as he spoke, before a long mirror.