on no account be allowed to run into peril.  Vittoria tried to assert her will; she found it unstrung.  She thought besides that this disguised officer, with the ill-looking eyes running into one, might easily, since he had heard her, be a devotee of her voice; and it flattered her yet more to imagine him as a capture from the enemy—­a vanquished subservient Austrian.  She had seen him come on horseback; he had evidently followed her; and he knew what she now understood must be her destination.

Moreover, Laura had underlined ‘it is an Austrian who rescues you.’  This man perchance was the Austrian.  His precise manner of speech demanded an extreme repugnance, if it was to be resisted; Vittoria’s reliance upon her own natural fortitude was much too secure for her to encourage the physical revulsions which certain hard faces of men create in the hearts of young women.

‘Was all quiet in Milan?’ she asked.

‘Quiet as a pillow,’ he said.

‘And will continue to be?’

‘Not a doubt of it.’

‘Why is there not a doubt of it, signore?’

’You beat us Germans on one field.  On the other you have no chance.  But you must lose no time.  The Croats are on your track.  I have ordered out the carriage.’

The mention of the Croats struck her fugitive senses with a panic.

‘I must wait for my maid,’ she said, attempting to deliberate.

‘Ha! you have a maid:  of course you have!  Where is your maid?’

‘She ought to have returned by this time.  If not, she is on the road.’

’On the road?  Good; we will pick up the maid on the road.  We have not a minute to spare.  Lady, I am your obsequious servant.  Hasten out, I beg of you.  I was taught at my school that minutes are not to be wasted.  Those Croats have been drinking and what not on the way, or they would have been here before this.  You can’t rely on Italian innkeepers to conceal you.’

‘Signore, are you a man of honour?’

‘Illustrious lady, I am.’

She listened simply to the response without giving heed to the prodigality of gesture.  The necessity for flight now that Milan was announced as lying quiet, had become her sole thought.  Angelo was standing by the carriage.

‘What man is this?’ said Herr Johannes, frowning.

‘He is my servant,’ said Vittoria.

’My dear good lady, you told me your servant was a maid.  This will never do.  We can’t have him.’

‘Excuse me, signore, I never travel without him.’

’Travel!  This is not a case of travelling, but running; and when you run, if you are in earnest about it, you must fling away your baggage and arms.’

Herr Johannes tossed out his moustache to right and left, and stamped his foot.  He insisted that the man should be left behind.

‘Off, sir! back to Milan, or elsewhere,’ he cried.

‘Beppo, mount on the box,’ said Vittoria.