“Dear countess, I could be one of them myself!” Adela burst out with tentative boldness.

“Then, kiss me.”

And behold, they interchanged that unsweet feminine performance.

Adela’s lips were unlocked by it.

“How many would envy me, dear Countess d’Isorella!”

She really conceived that she was driving into Violetta’s heart by the great high-road of feminine vanity.  Violetta permitted her to think as she liked.

“Your countrywomen, madame, do not make large allowances for beauty, I hear.”

“None at all.  But they are so stiff! so frigid!  I know one, a Miss Ford, now in Italy, who would not let me have a male friend, and a character, in conjunction.”

“You are acquainted with Count Karl Lenkenstein?”

Adela blushingly acknowledged it.

“The whisper goes that I was once admired by him,” said Violetta.

“And by Count Ammiani.”

“By count? by milord? by prince? by king?”

“By all who have good taste.”

“Was it jealousy, then, that made Countess Anna hate me?”

“She could not—­or she cannot now.”

“Because I have not taken possession of her brother.”

“I could not—­may I say it?—­I could not understand his infatuation until Countess Anna showed me the portrait of Italy’s most beautiful living woman.  She told me to look at the last of the Borgia family.”

Violetta laughed out clear music.  “And now you see her?”

“She said that it had saved her brother’s life.  It has a star and a scratch on the left cheek from a dagger.  He wore it on his heart, and an assassin struck him there:  a true romance.  Countess Anna said to me that it had saved one brother, and that it should help to avenge the other.  She has not spoken to me of Jesuits.”

“Nothing at all of the Jesuits?” said Violetta carelessly.  “Perhaps she wishes to use my endeavours to get the Salaseo armistice prolonged, and tempts me, knowing I am a prodigal.  Austria is victorious, you know, but she wants peace.  Is that the case?  I do not press you to answer.”

Adela replied hesitatingly:  “Are you aware, countess, whether there is any truth in the report that Countess Lena has a passion for Count Ammiani?”

“Ah, then,” said Violetta, “Countess Lena’s sister would naturally wish to prevent his contemplated marriage!  We may have read the riddle at last.  Are you discreet?  If you are, you will let it be known that I had the honour of becoming intimate with you in Turin—­say, at the Court.  We shall meet frequently there during winter, I trust, if you care to make a comparison of the Italian with the Austrian and the English nobility.”