ore and more
fascinated by this tenderness apart from wit, always and in all things
the same, an affection that was jealous of mere nothings--already!

"You care very much for luxury?" said he one evening to Francesca, who
was expressing her wish to get away from Gersau, where she missed many
things.

"I!" cried she. "I love luxury as I love the arts, as I love a picture
by Raphael, a fine horse, a beautiful day, or the Bay of Naples.
Emilio," she went on, "have I ever complained here during our days of
privation."

"You would not have been yourself if you had," replied the old man
gravely.

"After all, is it not in the nature of plain folks to aspire to
grandeur?" she asked, with a mischievous glance at Rodolphe and at her
husband. "Were my feet made for fatigue?" she added, putting out two
pretty little feet. "My hands"--and she held one out to Rodolphe--"were
those hands made to work?--Leave us," she said to her husband; "I want
to speak to him."

The old man went into the drawing-room with sublime good faith; he was
sure of his wife.

"I will not have you come with us to Geneva," she said to Rodolphe. "It
is a gossiping town. Though I am far above the nonsense the world talks,
I do not choose to be calumniated, not for my own sake, but for his. I
make it my pride to be the glory of that old man, who is, after all, my
only protector. We are leaving; stay here a few days. When you come on
to Geneva, call first on my husband, and let him introduce you to me.
Let us hide our great and unchangeable affection from the eyes of the
world. I love you; you know it; but this is how I will prove it to
you--you shall never discern in my conduct anything whatever that may
arouse your jealousy."

She drew him into a corner of the balcony, kissed him on the forehead,
and fled, leaving him in amazement.

Next day Rodolphe heard that the lodgers at the Bergmanns' had left at
daybreak. It then seemed to him intolerable to remain at Gersau, and
he set out for Vevay by the longest route, starting sooner than was
necessary. Attracted to the waters of the lake where the beautiful
Italian awaited him, he reached Geneva by the end of October. To avoid
the discomforts of the town he took rooms in a house at Eaux-Vives,
outside the walls. As soon as he was settled, his first care was to
ask his landlord, a retired jeweler, whether some Italian refugees from
Milan had not lately come to reside at Geneva.

"Not so far as I know," r