mannerly.’  The captain blocked her passage.  ’You must not leave me while I am speaking.  A good governess would have taught you that in the nursery.  I am afraid you had an inattentive governess, who did not impress upon you the duty of recognizing friends when you meet them!  Ha! you were educated in England, I have heard.  Shake hands.  It is our custom—­I think a better one—­to kiss on the right cheek and the left, but we will shake hands.’

‘In God’s name, sir, let me go on,’ Vittoria could just gather voice to utter.

‘But,’ cried the delighted captain, ’you address me in the tones of a basso profundo!  It is absurd.  Do you suppose that I am to be deceived by your artifice?—­rogue that you are!  Don’t I know you are a woman? a sweet, an ecstatic, a darling little woman!’

He laughed.  She shivered to hear the solitary echoes.  There was sunlight on the farthest Adige walls, but damp shade already filled the East-facing hollows.

‘I beg you very earnestly, to let me go on,’ said Vittoria.

‘With equal earnestness, I beg you to let me accompany you,’ he replied.  ’I mean no offence, mademoiselle; but I have sworn that I and no one but I shall conduct you to the Castle of Sonnenberg, where you will meet the Lenkenstein ladies, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted.  You see, you have nothing to fear if you play no foolish pranks, like a kicking filly in the pasture.’

‘If it is your pleasure,’ she said gravely; but he obtruded the bow of an arm.  She drew back.  Her first blank despair at sight of the trap she had fallen into, was clearing before her natural high courage.

’My little lady! my precious prima donna! do you refuse the most trifling aid from me?  It’s because I’m a German.’

‘There are many noble gentlemen who are Germans,’ said Vittoria.

’It ’s because I’m a German; I know it is.  But, don’t you see, Germany invades Italy, and keeps hold of her?  Providence decrees it so—­ask the priests!  You are a delicious Italian damsel, and you will take the arm of a German.’

Vittoria raised her face.  ‘Do you mean that I am your prisoner?’

‘You did not look braver at La Scala’; the captain bowed to her.

‘Ah, I forgot,’ said she; ’you saw me there.  If, signore, you will do me the favour to conduct me to the nearest inn, I will sing to you.’

’It is precisely my desire, signorina.

You are not married to that man Guidascarpi, I presume?  No, no:  you are merely his . . . friend.  May I have the felicity of hearing you call me your friend?  Why, you tremble! are you afraid of me?’

‘To tell the truth, you talk too much to please me,’ said Vittoria.

The captain praised her frankness, and he liked it.  The trembling of her frame still fascinated his eyes, but her courage and the absence of all womanly play and cowering about her manner impressed him seriously.  He stood looking at her, biting his moustache, and trying to provoke her to smile.