than the tears or the voice
which spoke of it: a feeling of subjected love that was like a mother's
giving suck to a detested child. Countess Ammiani saw the abrupt
alteration of her step and look with a dim surprise. "What do you conceal
from me?" she asked, and supplied the answer by charitably attributing it
to news that the signora Piaveni was coming.

When Laura came, the countess thanked her, saying, "I am a wretched
companion for this boiling head."

Laura soon proved to her that she had been the best, for after very few
hours Vittoria was looking like the Hagar on the canvas.

A woman such as Violetta d'Isorella was of the sort from which Laura
shrank with all her feminine power of loathing; but she spoke of her with
some effort at personal tolerance until she heard of Violetta's
stipulation for the deferring of Carlo's marriage, and contrived to guess
that Carlo was reserved and unfamiliar with his betrothed. Then she cried
out, "Fool that he is! Is it ever possible to come to the end of the
folly of men? She has inflamed his vanity. She met him when you were
holding him waiting, and no doubt she commenced with lamentations over
the country, followed by a sigh, a fixed look, a cheerful air, and the
assurance to him that she knew it--uttered as if through the keyhole of
the royal cabinet--she knew that Sardinia would break the Salasco
armistice in a mouth:--if only, if the king could be sure of support from
the youth of Lombardy."

"Do you suspect the unhappy king?" Vittoria interposed.

"Grasp your colours tight," said Laura, nodding sarcastic approbation of
such fidelity, and smiling slightly. "There has been no mention of the
king. Countess d'Isorella is a spy and a tool of the Jesuits, taking pay
from all parties--Austria as well, I would swear. Their object is to
paralyze the march on Rome, and she has won Carlo for them. I am told
that Barto Rizzo is another of her conquests. Thus she has a madman and a
fool, and what may not be done with a madman and a fool? However, I have
set a watch on her. She must have inflamed Carlo's vanity. He has it,
just as they all have. There's trickery: I would rather behold the boy
charging at the head of a column than putting faith in this base
creature. She must have simulated well," Laura went on talking to
herself.

"What trickery?" said Vittoria.

"He was in love with the woman when he was a lad," Laura replied, and
pertinently to Vittoria's feelings. This threw