‘But we trust her to do what she has undertaken to do,’ said Laura.

The count brightened prodigiously from his suspicion to a certainty; and as he was still smiling at the egregious trap his clever but unskilled daughter had fallen into, he found himself listening incredulously to her plain additional sentence:—­’She has easy command of three octaves.’

By which the allusion was transformed from politics to Art.  Had Laura reserved this cunning turn a little further, yielding to the natural temptation to increase the shock of the antithetical battery, she would have betrayed herself:  but it came at the right moment:  the count gave up his arms.  He told her that this Signorina Vittoria was suspected.  ’Whom will they not suspect!’ interjected Laura.  He assured her that if a conspiracy had ripened it must fail.  She was to believe that he abhorred the part of a spy or informer, but he was bound, since she was reckless, to watch over his daughter; and also bound, that he might be of service to her, to earn by service to others as much power as he could reasonably hope to obtain.  Laura signified that he argued excellently well.  In a fit of unjustified doubt of her sincerity, he complained, with a querulous snap: 

’You have your own ideas; you have your own ideas.  You think me this and that.  A man must be employed.’

‘And this is to account for your occupation?’ she remarked.

‘Employed, I say!’ the count reiterated fretfully.  He was unmasking to no purpose, and felt himself as on a slope, having given his adversary vantage.

‘So that there is no choice for you, do you mean?’

The count set up a staggering affirmative, but knocked it over with its natural enemy as soon as his daughter had said, ’Not being for Italy, you must necessarily be against her:—­I admit that to be the position!’

‘No!’ he cried; ’no:  there is no question of “for” or “against,” as you are aware.  “Italy, and not Revolution”:  that is my motto.’

‘Or, in other words, “The impossible,"’ said Laura.  ‘A perfect motto!’

Again the count looked at her, with the remorseful thought:  ’I certainly gave you too much brains.’

He smiled:  ‘If you could only believe it not impossible!’

’Do you really imagine that “Italy without Revolution” does not mean “Austria"?’ she inquired.

She had discovered how much he, and therefore his party, suspected, and now she had reasons for wishing him away.  Not daring to show symptoms of restlessness, she offered him the chance of recovering himself on the crutches of an explanation.  He accepted the assistance, praising his wits for their sprightly divination, and went through a long-winded statement of his views for the welfare of Italy, quoting his favourite Berni frequently, and forcing the occasion for that jolly poet.  Laura gave quiet attention to all, and when he was exhausted at the close, said meditatively, ’Yes.  Well; you are older.  It may seem to you that I shall think as you do when I have had a similar, or the same, length of experience.’