Little liar!  How dared she utter this libel on my memory!  Haughty, I might have been to others, but never to her—­and coldness was no part of my nature.  Would that it were!  Would that I had been a pillar of ice, incapable of thawing in the sunlight of her witching smile!  Had she forgotten what a slave I was to her? what a poor, adoring, passionate fool I became under the influence of her hypocritical caresses!  I thought this to myself, but I answered aloud: 

“Indeed!  I am surprised to hear that.  The Romani hauteur had ever to my mind something genial and yielding about it—­I know my friend was always most gentle to his dependents.”

The butler here coughed apologetically behind his hand—­an old trick of his, and one which signified his intense desire to speak.

Ferrari laughed, as he held out his glass for more wine.

“Here is old Giacomo,” he said, nodding to him lightly.  “He remembers both the Romanis—­ask him his opinion of Fabio—­he worshiped his master.”

I turned to my servant, and with a benignant air addressed him: 

“Your face is not familiar to me, my friend,” I said.  “Perhaps you were not here when I visited the elder Count Romani?”

“No, eccellenza,” replied Giacomo, rubbing his withered hands nervously together, and speaking with a sort of suppressed eagerness, “I came into my lord’s service only a year before the countess died—­I mean the mother of the young count.”

“Ah! then I missed making your acquaintance,” I said, kindly, pitying the poor old fellow, as I noticed how his lips trembled, and how altogether broken he looked.  “You knew the last count from childhood, then?”

“I did, eccellenza!” And his bleared eyes roved over me with a sort of alarmed inquiry.

“You loved him well?” I said, composedly, observing him with embarrassment.

“Eccellenza, I never wish to serve a better master.  He was goodness itself—­a fine, handsome, generous lad—­the saints have his soul in their keeping!  Though sometimes I cannot believe he is dead—­my old heart almost broke when I heard it.  I have never been the same since—­my lady will tell you so—­she is often displeased with me.”

And he looked wistfully at her; there was a note of pleading in his hesitating accents.  My wife’s delicate brows drew together in a frown, a frown that I had once thought came from mere petulance, but which I was now inclined to accept as a sign of temper.  “Yes, indeed, Giacomo,” she said, in hard tones, altogether unlike her usual musical voice.  “You are growing so forgetful that it is positively annoying.  You know I have often to tell you the same thing several times.  One command ought to be sufficient for you.”

Giacomo passed his hand over his forehead in a troubled way, sighed, and was silent.  Then, as if suddenly recollecting his duty, he refilled my glass, and shrinking aside, resumed his former position behind my chair.