So this was the meaning of all the difficulties, which Bianca had made.  She had absolutely conceived the idea of his marrying her.  Heavens and earth!  Was she mad?  But, at all events, if this notion had been the cause of all her fighting off of his advances for the last month past, it was not necessary to attribute her conduct to any preference for some more favoured lover; she had assured him that she loved him—­loved him as she had never loved another.  And, gracious heaven, how lovely she looked as she said it!

He pressed his hands before his eyes, and saw again in fancy the beautiful vision; gloated on the eloquent movement of her person in the earnestness of her confession; looked again into those large appealing honest eyes, which seemed to be so incapable of lending their voucher to a lie.  Surely it could not be that all those protestations and assurances were false,—­mere comedy got up for the purpose of deluding him.  That she was worldlily anxious to secure so great a prize as that which she was trying for was natural enough—­ was matter of course.  But surely, surely there was genuine affection in that glance.  Was it not likely to be genuine,—­that feeling that she could not be to him what she had been to others?  It must have been abundantly clear to her that had she chosen to accept from him what he had offered her, she might have amply satisfied any mercenary views, the most exorbitant.  Therefore her views and her feelings were of a different order.

And then the thought of being so loved by such a creature—­of being really loved for himself—­loved as she had never loved before, made for the moment all other thought impossible to him:  he started from his chair, and paced the room with rapid disordered strides.  What was all the world to the ecstasy of such a love?  All—­all that he had hitherto lived for, was it not flat, stale, poor, puerile, in comparison to it?  Why not leave all, and seize a happiness so infinitely greater than any he had ever known or imagined?  Why not marry her, and be hers for ever, as she was anxious to be his?  Nobles of higher rank than his had done as much before.  Why not?

What would they all say and think?  All his world, that he had lived among, and lived for, from his cradle upwards:  the Cardinal, his sister, his nephew, Violante?  The whole society which had looked up to him as some one altogether above the sphere of human frailties and follies:  how could he face them?  What say to them?  Why face them at all?  Why not leave all, and make a new world for himself and the one dear companion of it?  Marry her, and take her safe away from all her past, and from all his.  Why not?