“Depend on it, Signor Marchese, your secret shall be quite safe with me.  But are you sure it is a secret?  And then, do you know,” continued the Diva, resuming her air of pensive thought, “when I hear a man in your position speaking with such noble truthfulness, the converse of the thought that I angered you—­very innocently, believe me—­by expressing just now, comes into my head.  And I ask myself, if women in such a position as the lady we speak of, are apt to take themselves to task with sufficient strictness, as to what they are giving in return for all that is offered to them.”

“I don’t quite understand your meaning, Signora,” said Ludovico, who really did not perceive the drift of his companion’s words.

“I mean that a woman, so circumstanced, ought to be very sure that she is giving her heart to the man who asks for it, and not to his position, not to the advantages, to the wealth he offers her.  She ought to feel certain that, if all this—­the advantages—­the wealth were to vanish and fly away, her love would remain the same.  Suppose now—­it is out of the question, you tell me, but the case may be imagined all the same—­suppose your uncle, the Marchese, were to marry, would the Venetian lady’s love suffer no tittle of falling off?”

The red blood rushed to Ludovico’s cheeks and brow, and then came an angry gleam into his eyes.  It was not that he resented the liberty which his companion took in thus speaking to him.  It was not, either, that he felt indignant at the doubt cast, even hypothetically, on the purity of his Paolina’s love.  It was rather the unreasoning animal anger against the person who had given him pain.  It was a stab to his heart, this germ of a doubt thus placed there for the first time.  He was conscious of the pang, and resented it.  In the next minute the hot flush passed from his face, and he became very pale.

Bianca saw, and understood it all, as perfectly as if she could have seen into his heart and brain.

“The doubt, you put before me, is so horrible an one that I could almost wish it might be put to the test you speak of.  But I have no such doubt.  However much your questioning may be justified by other examples, it is not justified in the case of Paolina.  I know her; I know her heart, and the perfect truthfulness that wells up from the depths of her honest eyes.”

No amount of ready histrionism was sufficient to prevent a very meaning, though momentary, sneer from passing over the beautiful face of the singer as Ludovico spoke thus.  But he was too much excited by his own thoughts and words to perceive it.

“I trust that you may be right, Signor Marchese.  I have no doubt that you are right.  Believe me that I have ventured to speak as I have spoken, solely from interest in the welfare of one who has been so uniformly good and kind to me as you have.  Will you believe me, Signor Ludovico, that I would do a good deal and bear a good deal to be able to conduce to your happiness in any way?”