’I receive two couriers a week; I know not any more, my Laura.  I believe he is pushing some connubial complaint against me at the Court.  We have been married seventeen months.  I submitted to the marriage because I could get no proper freedom without, and now I am expected to abstain from the very thing I sacrificed myself to get!  Can he hear that in Vienna?’ She snapped her fingers.  ’If not, let him come and behold it in Milan.  Besides, he is harmless.  The Archduchess is all ears for the very man of whom he is jealous.  This is my reply:  You told me to marry:  I obeyed.  My heart ’s in the earth, and I must have distractions.  My present distraction is De Pyrmont, a good Catholic and a good Austrian soldier, though a Frenchman.  I grieve to say—­it’s horrible—­that it sometimes tickles me when I reflect that De Pyrmont is keen with the sword.  But remember, Laura, it was not until after our marriage my husband told me he could have saved Giacomo by the lifting of a finger.  Away with the man!—­if it amuses me to punish him, I do so.’

The duchess kissed Laura’s cheek, and continued:—­’Now to the point where we stand enemies!  I am for Austria, you are for Italy.  Good.  But I am always for Laura.  So, there’s a river between us and a bridge across it.  My darling, do you know that we are much too strong for you, if you mean anything serious tomorrow night?’

‘Are you?’ Laura said calmly.

‘I know, you see, that something is meant to happen to-morrow night.’

Laura said, ‘Do you?’

’We have positive evidence of it.  More than that:  Your Vittoria—­but do you care to have her warned?  She will certainly find herself in a pitfall if she insists on carrying out her design.  Tell me, do you care to have her warned and shielded?  A year of fortress-life is not agreeable, is not beneficial for the voice.  Speak, my Laura.’

Laura looked up in the face of her friend mildly with her large dark eyes, replying, ’Do you think of sending Major de Pyrmont to her to warn her?’

‘Are you not wicked?’ cried the duchess, feeling that she blushed, and that Laura had thrown her off the straight road of her interrogation.  ’But, play cards with open hands, my darling, to-night.  Look:—­She is in danger.  I know it; so do you.  She will be imprisoned perhaps before she steps on the boards—­who knows?  Now, I—­are not my very dreams all sworn in a regiment to serve my Laura?—­I have a scheme.  Truth, it is hardly mine.  It belongs to the Greek, the Signor Antonio Pericles Agriolopoulos.  It is simply’—­the duchess dropped her voice out of Beppo’s hearing—­’a scheme to rescue her:  speed her away to my chateau near Meran in Tyrol.’  ‘Tyrol’ was heard by Beppo.  In his frenzy at the loss of the context he indulged in a yawn, and a grimace, and a dance of disgust all in one; which lost him the next sentence likewise.  ’There we purpose keeping her till all is quiet and her revolutionary