“Zitto!” said she, stamping her foot, and looking whether her husband were listening.  “Never disturb the peace of mind of that dear man, as simple as a child, and with whom I can do what I please.  He is under my protection,” she added.  “If you could know with what generosity he risked his life and fortune because I was a Liberal! for he does not share my political opinions.  Is not that love, Monsieur Frenchman?—­But they are like that in his family.  Emilio’s younger brother was deserted for a handsome youth by the woman he loved.  He thrust his sword through his own heart ten minutes after he had said to his servant, ’I could of course kill my rival, but that would grieve the Diva too deeply.’”

This mixture of dignity and banter, of haughtiness and playfulness, made Francesca at this moment the most fascinating creature in the world.  The dinner and the evening were full of cheerfulness, justified, indeed, by the relief of the two refugees, but depressing to Rodolphe.

“Can she be fickle?” he asked himself as he returned to the Stopfers’ house.  “She sympathized in my sorrow, and I cannot take part in her joy!”

He blamed himself, justifying this girl-wife.

“She has no taint of hypocrisy, and is carried away by impulse,” thought he, “and I want her to be like a Parisian woman.”

* * * * *

Next day and the following days, in fact, for twenty days after, Rodolphe spent all his time at the Bergmanns’, watching Francesca without having determined to watch her.  In some souls admiration is not independent of a certain penetration.  The young Frenchman discerned in Francesca the imprudence of girlhood, the true nature of a woman as yet unbroken, sometimes struggling against her love, and at other moments yielding and carried away by it.  The old man certainly behaved to her as a father to his daughter, and Francesca treated him with a deeply felt gratitude which roused her instinctive nobleness.  The situation and the woman were to Rodolphe an impenetrable enigma, of which the solution attracted him more and more.

These last days were full of secret joys, alternating with melancholy moods, with tiffs and quarrels even more delightful than the hours when Rodolphe and Francesca were of one mind.  And he was more and more fascinated by this tenderness apart from wit, always and in all things the same, an affection that was jealous of mere nothings—­already!

“You care very much for luxury?” said he one evening to Francesca, who was expressing her wish to get away from Gersau, where she missed many things.

“I!” cried she.  “I love luxury as I love the arts, as I love a picture by Raphael, a fine horse, a beautiful day, or the Bay of Naples.  Emilio,” she went on, “have I ever complained here during our days of privation.”

“You would not have been yourself if you had,” replied the old man gravely.