"Quite useless, I fear. Good-night."

Ammiani charged one of the men at an outer barricade to follow the white
umbrella and pass it on.

He returned to the Countess d'Isorella, who was awaiting him, and alone.

This glorious head had aroused his first boyish passion. Scandal was busy
concerning the two, when Violetta d'Asola, the youthfullest widow in
Lombardy and the loveliest woman, gave her hand to Count d'Isorella, who
took it without question of the boy Ammiani. Carlo's mother assisted in
that arrangement; a maternal plot, for which he could thank her only
after he had seen Vittoria, and then had heard the buzz of whispers at
Violetta's name. Countess d'Isorella proved her friendship to have
survived the old passion, by travelling expressly from Turin to obtain
leave to visit him in prison. It was a marvellous face to look upon
between prison walls. Rescued while the soldiers were marching him to the
citadel that day, he was called by pure duty to pay his respects to the
countess as soon as he had heard from his mother that she was in the
city. Nor was his mother sorry that he should go. She had patiently
submitted to the fact of his betrothal to Vittoria, which was his
safeguard in similar perils; and she rather hoped for Violetta to wean
him from his extreme republicanism. By arguments? By influence, perhaps.
Carlo's republicanism was preternatural in her sight, and she presumed
that Violetta would talk to him discreetly and persuasively of the noble
designs of the king.

Violetta d'Isorella received him with a gracious lifting of her fingers
to his lips; congratulating him on his escape, and on the good fortune of
the day. She laughed at the Lenkensteins and the singular Englishman; sat
down to a little supper-tray, and pouted humorously as she asked him to
feed on confects and wine; the huge appetites of the insurgents had
devoured all her meat and bread.

"Why are you here?" he said.

She did well in replying boldly, "For the king."

"Would you tell another that it is for the king?"

"Would I speak to another as I speak to you?"

Ammiani inclined his head.

They spoke of the prospects of the insurrection, of the expected outbreak
in Venice, the eruption of Paris and Vienna, and the new life of Italy;
touching on Carlo Alberto to explode the truce in a laughing dissension.
At last she said seriously, "I am a born Venetian, you know; I am not
Piedmontese. Let me be sure that the king betrays the coun