The countess then asked herself how much she knew.  Her habit of receiving her son’s word and will as supreme kept her ignorant of anything beyond the outline of his plans; and being told to speak openly of them to another, she discovered that her acquiescing imagination supplied the chief part of her knowledge.  She was ashamed also to have it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered every detail of his occupation, so that she could not argue against him, and had to submit to see her dearest wishes lightly swept aside.

“I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess d’Isorella; not the afterthought,” she said to Vittoria.

“She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani.”

“Call me mother now and then.  Yes; she is beautiful.  She has a bad name.”

“Envy must have given it, I think.”

“Of course she provokes envy.  But I say that her name is bad, as envy could not make it.  She is a woman who goes on missions, and carries a husband into society like a passport.  You have only thought of her beauty?”

“I can see nothing else,” said Vittoria, whose torture at the sight of the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous pleading on its behalf.

“In my time Beauty was a sinner,” the countess resumed.  “My confessor has filled my ears with warnings that it is a net to the soul, a weapon for devils.  May the saints of Paradise make bare the beauty of this woman.  She has persuaded Carlo that she is serving the country.  You have let him lie here alone in a fruitless bed, silly girl.  He stayed for you while his comrades called him to Vercelli, where they are assembled.  The man whom he salutes as his Chief gave him word to go there.  They are bound for Rome.  Ah me!  Rome is a great name, but Lombardy is Carlo’s natal home, and Lombardy bleeds.  You were absent—­ how long you were absent!  If you could know the heaviness of those days of his waiting for you.  And it was I who kept him here!  I must have omitted a prayer, for he would have been at Vercelli now with Luciano and Emilio, and you might have gone to him; but he met this woman, who has convinced him that Piedmont will make a Winter march, and that his marriage must be delayed.”  The countess raised her face and drooped her hands from the wrists, exclaiming, “If I have lately omitted one prayer, enlighten me, blessed heaven!  I am blind; I cannot see for my son; I am quite blind.  I do not love the woman; therefore I doubt myself.  You, my daughter, tell me your thought of her, tell me what you think.  Young eyes observe; young heads are sometimes shrewd in guessing.”

Vittoria said, after a pause, “I will believe her to be true, if she supports the king.”  It was hardly truthful speaking on her part.

“How can Carlo have been persuaded!” the countess sighed.

“By me?” Victoria asked herself, and for a moment she was exulting.

She spoke from that emotion when it had ceased to animate her.