Rodolphe loved as every woman may dream of being loved, with a force, a constancy, a tenacity, which made Francesca the very substance of his heart; he felt her mingling with his blood as purer blood, with his soul as a more perfect soul; she would henceforth underlie the least efforts of his life as the golden sand of the Mediterranean lies beneath the waves.  In short, Rodolphe’s lightest aspiration was now a living hope.

At the end of a few days, Francesca understood this boundless love; but it was so natural, and so perfectly shared by her, that it did not surprise her.  She was worthy of it.

“What is there that is strange?” said she to Rodolphe, as they walked on the garden terrace, when he had been betrayed into one of those outbursts of conceit which come so naturally to Frenchmen in the expression of their feelings—­“what is extraordinary in the fact of your loving a young and beautiful woman, artist enough to be able to earn her living like Tinti, and of giving you some of the pleasures of vanity?  What lout but would then become an Amadis?  This is not in question between you and me.  What is needed is that we both love faithfully, persistently; at a distance from each other for years, with no satisfaction but that of knowing that we are loved.”

“Alas!” said Rodolphe, “will you not consider my fidelity as devoid of all merit when you see me absorbed in the efforts of devouring ambition?  Do you imagine that I can wish to see you one day exchange the fine name of Gandolphini for that of a man who is a nobody?  I want to become one of the most remarkable men of my country, to be rich, great—­that you may be as proud of my name as of your own name of Colonna.”

“I should be grieved to see you without such sentiments in your heart,” she replied, with a bewitching smile.  “But do not wear yourself out too soon in your ambitious labors.  Remain young.  They say that politics soon make a man old.”

One of the rarest gifts in women is a certain gaiety which does not detract from tenderness.  This combination of deep feeling with the lightness of youth added an enchanting grace at this moment to Francesca’s charms.  This is the key to her character; she laughs and she is touched; she becomes enthusiastic, and returns to arch raillery with a readiness, a facility, which makes her the charming and exquisite creature she is, and for which her reputation is known outside Italy.  Under the graces of a woman she conceals vast learning, thanks to the excessively monotonous and almost monastic life she led in the castle of the old Colonnas.

This rich heiress was at first intended for the cloister, being the fourth child of Prince and Princess Colonna; but the death of her two brothers, and of her elder sister, suddenly brought her out of her retirement, and made her one of the most brilliant matches in the Papal States.  Her elder sister had been betrothed to Prince Gandolphini, one of the richest landowners in Sicily; and Francesca was married to him instead, so that nothing might be changed in the position of the family.  The Colonnas and Gandolphinis had always intermarried.