“Don’t, Quinto; don’t talk in that manner, or you’ll drive me beyond myself.  I can’t bear it.”

“But did you not say that you loved the Marchese Lamberto?” persisted Quinto, dropping his mocking tone, however.

“I said that I liked him better than any of the men I have known; that I admired him as a fine and noble gentleman; that I would be a good and true wife to him,—­and should love him,” she added, with a burst of bitterness, “better than he ever will, or can, love me.”

“Well, come now, bambina mia.  If you think that the Marchese is not enough in love with you, you must have a strong appetite, indeed, and be very hard to content.  Why, if there ever was a man thoroughly caught, fascinated—­”

“Bah!  Love!  Ludovico loves the Venetian,” said Bianca, with an expressive emphasis on the verb.

“Ludovico, again!  I protest I don’t understand you, Bianca.  But there, when a man has come to my age he don’t expect ever to understand a woman.  You did not want Ludovico, as you call him, to love you, did you?”

“No:  but—­”

And Bianca stopped short, and seemed to fall into a sort of reverie.

“But what?  If you mean that you wanted to have the uncle for a husband, and the nephew for a lover, that is intelligible enough.  The game would have been a dangerous one.  But there is no reason why you should not say it plainly between friends.”

“I tell you, Quinto, I won’t hear you speak to me in that tone,” said Bianca, turning on him fiercely, and with flashing eyes.  “Did I ever do anything to attract him?” she added,—­“did I try to make him love me?  Do you think that the Venetian would have stood in the way if I had chosen to do so?  I never did!  I meant, if the Marchese would make me his wife, to be true and loyal to him; though he himself seems to think it impossible that I should be so.  You know that I have never attempted to attract Ludovico in any way.”

“Very well then; let his Venetian have him in peace,” said Quinto, shrugging his shoulders.

“Why, then, does that girl hate me as she does?  What harm have I ever done her?” returned Bianca.

“Why should you think she does hate you?” expostulated Quinto.

“I have told you that I saw it.  I saw it in her eyes when Ludovico was handing me the bouquet;—­which he only did because his uncle told him to do it.  She would have blasted me to death with her look at that moment if she could have done it;—­I have a good mind—­a very good mind—­”

“Be guided by me this once for the last time, as you have so often been before; bambina mia,” said Quinto, who thought that he now understood the real state of the case; “make sure of your own game first.  Make all safe with the Marchese Lamberto.  When you are the Marchesa di Castelmare it will be time to take any revenge on the Venetian you please.”