They spoke of the prospects of the insurrection, of the expected outbreak in Venice, the eruption of Paris and Vienna, and the new life of Italy; touching on Carlo Alberto to explode the truce in a laughing dissension.  At last she said seriously, “I am a born Venetian, you know; I am not Piedmontese.  Let me be sure that the king betrays the country, and I will prefer many heads to one.  Excuse me if I am more womanly just at present.  The king has sent his accredited messenger Tartini to the Provisional Government, requesting it to accept his authority.  Why not? why not? on both sides.  Count Medole gives his adhesion to the king, but you have a Council of War that rejects the king’s overtures—­a revolt within a revolt.

“It is deplorable.  You must have an army.  The Piedmontese once over the Ticino, how can you act in opposition to it?  You must learn to take a master.  The king is only, or he appears, tricksy because you compel him to wind and counterplot.  I swear to you, Italy is his foremost thought.  The Star of Italy sits on the Cross of Savoy.”

Ammiani kept his eyelids modestly down.  “Ten thousand to plead for him, such as you!” he said.  “But there is only one!”

“If you had been headstrong once upon a time, and I had been weak, you see, my Carlo, you would have been a domestic tyrant, I a rebel.  You will not admit the existence of a virtue in an opposite opinion.  Wise was your mother when she said ‘No’ to a wilful boy!”

Violetta lit her cigarette and puffed the smoke lightly.

“I told you in that horrid dungeon, my Carlo Amaranto—­I call you by the old name—­the old name is sweet!—­I told you that your Vittoria is enamoured of the king.  She blushes like a battle-flag for the king.  I have heard her ‘Viva il Re!’ It was musical.”

“So I should have thought.”

“Ay, but my amaranto-innamorato, does it not foretell strife?  Would you ever—­ever take a heart with a king’s head stamped on it into your arms?”

“Give me the chance!”

He was guilty of this ardent piece of innocence though Violetta had pitched her voice in the key significant of a secret thing belonging to two memories that had not always flowed dividedly.

“Like a common coin?” she resumed.

“A heart with a king’s head stamped on it like a common coin.”

He recollected the sentence.  He had once, during the heat of his grief for Giacomo Piaveni, cast it in her teeth.

Violetta repeated it, as to herself, tonelessly; a method of making an old unkindness strike back on its author with effect.

“Did we part good friends?  I forget,” she broke the silence.

“We meet, and we will be the best of friends,” said Ammiani.

“Tell your mother I am not three years older than her son,—­I am thirty.  Who will make me young again?  Tell her, my Carlo, that the genius for intrigue, of which she accuses me, develops at a surprising rate.  As regards my beauty,” the countess put a tooth of pearl on her soft under lip.