“Judge me when you are cooler, dearest,” said the duchess, seeking to detain the impetuous sister of her affection by the sweeping skirts; but Laura spurned her touch, and went from her.

Irma drove to Countess d’Isorella’s.  Violetta was abed, and lay fair and placid as a Titian Venus, while Irma sputtered out her tale, with intermittent sobs.  She rose upon her elbow, and planting it in her pillow, took half-a-dozen puffs of a cigarette, and then requested Irma to ring for her maid.  “Do nothing till you see me again,” she said; “and take my advice:  always get to bed before midnight, or you’ll have unmanageable wrinkles in a couple of years.  If you had been in bed at a prudent hour to-night, this scandal would not have occurred.”

“How can I be in bed?  How could I help it?” moaned Irma, replying to the abstract rule, and the perplexing illustration of its force.

Violetta dismissed her.  “After all, my wish is to save my poor Amaranto,” she mused.  “I am only doing now what I should have been doing in the daylight; and if I can’t stop him, the Government must; and they will.  Whatever the letter contained, I can anticipate it.  He knows my profession and my necessities.  I must have money.  Why not from the rich German woman whom he jilted?”

She attributed Anna’s apparent passion of revenge to a secret passion of unrequited love.  What else was implied by her willingness to part with land and money for the key to his machinations?

Violetta would have understood a revenge directed against Angelo Guidascarpi, as the slayer of Anna’s brother.  But of him Anna had only inquired once, and carelessly, whether he was in Milan.  Anna’s mystical semi-patriotism—­prompted by her hatred of Vittoria, hatred of Carlo as Angelo’s cousin and protector, hatred of the Italy which held the three, who never took the name Tedesco on their tongues without loathing—­was perfectly hidden from this shrewd head.

Some extra patrols were in the streets.  As she stepped into the carriage, a man rushed up, speaking hoarsely and inarticulately, and jumped in beside her.  She had discerned Barto Rizzo in time to give directions to her footman, before she was addressed by a body of gendarmes in pursuit, whom she mystified by entreating them to enter her house and search it through, if they supposed that any evil-doer had taken advantage of the open door.  They informed her that a man had escaped from the civil prison.  “Poor creature!” said the countess, with womanly pity; “but you must see that he is not in my house.  How could three of you let one escape?” She drove off laughing at their vehement assertion that he would not have escaped from them.  Barto Rizzo made her conduct him to Countess Ammiani’s gates.