“Of course, Bianca, I came when you begged me to do so,” said the Marchese, looking at her with a sort of sad wistfulness, and retaining both her hands in his.  He advanced his face to kiss her, and she stooped her head so as to permit him to press his lips to her forehead.

“Was it of course, amore mio?” she said, with a gushing look of exquisite happiness, and a little movement towards clasping his hand, which still held hers, to her heart.  “Was it of course that you should come to your own, own Bianca when she begged it?  But you are looking fagged, harassed, troubled, mio bene:  have you had anything to vex you?  Henceforward, you know, all that is trouble to you is trouble to me.  I shall insist on sharing your sorrows as well as your joys, Lamberto.  What is it that has annoyed you, amore mio?”

“I have much on my mind—­necessarily, Bianca mia; many things that are not pleasant to think of.  Can you not guess as much?”

“I have had but one thought, amico mio, since I heard from your lips the dear words that told me that henceforward we should be but one; that our lives, our hopes, our fears, would be the same; that, in the sight of God and man, you would be my husband, and I your wife.  Since then, I have had but one thought, and it is one which would avail to gild all others, let them be what they might, with its brightness.  Is the same thought as sweet a source of happiness to you, my promised husband?”

“That’s clear enough, I hope,” thought Gigia, outside the door, to herself.  “Che!  If nothing had been said the other day, that would be enough; and I think Quinto might trust nostra bambina to manage her own affairs.  She knows what she is about, the dear child:  not but that it is a good plan to be able to remind a gentleman in case he should forget.  Gentlemen will forget such things sometimes.”

“You cannot doubt my love,” said the Marchese, in reply to her appeal.

Those five words may possibly, in the course of the world’s history, have occurred before in the same combination.  But the phrase served the occasion as well as if it had been entirely new and original.

“Indeed, I do not, Lamberto; nor will you again, I trust, ever doubt mine as you seemed to do last night.  Ah, Lamberto! you do not know how bitterly I wept over the remembrance of those cruel words when I had parted from you.  You will never, never say such again.  Tell me you never will.”

“Doubts and fears, my Bianca, are the inevitable companions of such a love as mine,” said the Marchese, with a somewhat sickly smile; “but the few words you said last night sufficed to dissipate them, as I assured you.”

“But there is still something troubling your mind, Lamberto.  See, I already take the wifely privilege you have given me to wish to share all that annoys you.  What is it?  Come and sit by me here on the sofa, and tell me all about it.”