“The man she married?”

“The man she married.  I was very much in love with her, and yet I didn’t trust her.  I was sure that she lied; I believed that she could be cruel.  Nevertheless, at moments, she had a charm which made it pure pedantry to be conscious of her faults; and while these moments lasted I would have done anything for her.  Unfortunately they didn’t last long.  But you know what I mean; am I not describing the Scarabelli?”

“The Countess Scarabelli never lied!” cried Stanmer.

“That’s just what I would have said to any one who should have made the insinutation!  But I suppose you are not asking me the question you put to me just now from dispassionate curiosity.”

“A man may want to know!” said the innocent fellow.

I couldn’t help laughing out.  “This, at any rate, is my story.  Camerino was always there; he was a sort of fixture in the house.  If I had moments of dislike for the divine Bianca, I had no moments of liking for him.  And yet he was a very agreeable fellow, very civil, very intelligent, not in the least disposed to make a quarrel with me.  The trouble, of course, was simply that I was jealous of him.  I don’t know, however, on what ground I could have quarrelled with him, for I had no definite rights.  I can’t say what I expected—­I can’t say what, as the matter stood, I was prepared to do.  With my name and my prospects, I might perfectly have offered her my hand.  I am not sure that she would have accepted it—­I am by no means clear that she wanted that.  But she wanted, wanted keenly, to attach me to her; she wanted to have me about.  I should have been capable of giving up everything—­England, my career, my family—­simply to devote myself to her, to live near her and see her every day.”

“Why didn’t you do it, then?” asked Stanmer.

“Why don’t you?”

“To be a proper rejoinder to my question,” he said, rather neatly, “yours should be asked twenty-five years hence.”

“It remains perfectly true that at a given moment I was capable of doing as I say.  That was what she wanted—­a rich, susceptible, credulous, convenient young Englishman established near her en permanence.  And yet,” I added, “I must do her complete justice.  I honestly believe she was fond of me.”  At this Stanmer got up and walked to the window; he stood looking out a moment, and then he turned round.  “You know she was older than I,” I went on.  “Madame Scarabelli is older than you.  One day in the garden, her mother asked me in an angry tone why I disliked Camerino; for I had been at no pains to conceal my feeling about him, and something had just happened to bring it out.  ‘I dislike him,’ I said, ‘because you like him so much.’  ‘I assure you I don’t like him,’ she answered.  ‘He has all the appearance of being your lover,’ I retorted.  It was a brutal speech, certainly, but any other man in my place would have made it.  She took it very strangely; she turned pale, but she was not indignant.  ‘How can he be my lover after what he has done?’ she asked.  ‘What has he done?’ She hesitated a good while, then she said:  ‘He killed my husband.’  ‘Good heavens!’ I cried, ‘and you receive him!’ Do you know what she said?  She said, ‘Che voule?’”