“Carlo, you have done worse than that.  When I saw you first here, what crimes did you not accuse me of? what names did you not scatter on my head? and what things did I not, confess to?  I bore the unkindness, for you were beaten, and you wanted a victim.  And, my dear friend, considering that I am after all a woman, my forbearance has subsequently been still greater.”

“How?” he asked.  Her half-pathetic candour melted him.

“You must, have a lively memory for the uses of forgetfulness, Carlo, When you had scourged me well, you thought it proper to raise me up and give me comfort.  I was wicked for serving the king, and therefore the country, as a spy; but I was to persevere, and cancel my iniquities by betraying those whom I served to you.  That was your instructive precept.  Have I done it or not?  Answer, too have I done it for any payment beyond your approbation?  I persuaded you to hope for Lombardy, and without any vaunting of my own patriotism.  You have seen and spoken to the men I directed you to visit.  If their heads master yours, I shall be reprobated for it, I know surely; but I am confident as yet that you can match them.  In another month I expect to see the king over the Ticino once more, and Carlo in Brescia with his comrades.  You try to penetrate my eyes.  That’s foolish; I can make them glass.  Read me by what I say and what I do.  I do not entreat you to trust me; I merely beg that you will trust your own judgement of me by what I have helped you to do hitherto.  You and I, my dear boy, have had some trifling together.  Admit that another woman would have refused to surrender you as I did when your unruly Vittoria was at last induced to come to you from Milan.  Or, another woman would have had her revenge on discovering that she had been a puppet of soft eyes and a lover’s quarrel with his mistress.  Instead of which, I let you go.  I am opposed to the marriage, it’s true; and you know why.”

Carlo had listened to Violetta, measuring the false and the true in this recapitulation of her conduct with cool accuracy until she alluded to their personal relations.  Thereat his brows darkened.

“We had I some trifling together,” he said, musingly.

“Is it going to be denied in these sweeter days?” Violetta reddened.

“The phrase is elastic.  Suppose my bride were to hear it?”

“It was addressed to your ears, Carlo.”

“It cuts two ways.  Will you tell me when it was that I last had the happiness of saluting you, lip to lip?”

“In Brescia—­before I had espoused an imbecile—­two nights before my marriage—­near the fountain of the Greek girl with a pitcher.”

Pride and anger nerved the reply.  It was uttered in a rapid low breath.  Coming altogether unexpectedly, it created an intense momentary revulsion of his feelings by conjuring up his boyish love in a scene more living than the sunlight.

He lifted her hand to his mouth.  He was Italian enough, though a lover, to feel that she deserved more.  She had reddened deliciously, and therewith hung a dewy rosy moisture on her underlids.  Raising her eyes, she looked like a cut orange to a thirsty lip.  He kissed her, saying, “Pardon.”