any one
ever dared to mention the story--

Giovanni rose to his feet and mechanically took a fencing-foil from the
wall, as he often did for practice. If any one mentioned the story, he
thought, he had the means to silence them, quickly and for ever. His eyes
flashed suddenly at the idea of action--any action, even fighting, which
might be distantly connected with Corona. Then he tossed down the rapier
and threw himself into his chair, and sat quite still, staring at the
trophies of armour upon the wall opposite.

He could not do it. To wrong one woman for the sake of shielding another
was not in his power. People might laugh at him and call him Quixotic,
forsooth, because he would not do like every one else and make a marriage
of convenience--of propriety. Propriety! when his heart was breaking
within him; when every fibre of his strong frame quivered with the strain
of passion; when his aching eyes saw only one face, and his ears echoed
the words she had spoken that very afternoon! Propriety indeed! Propriety
was good enough for cold-blooded dullards. Donna Tullia had done him no
harm that he should marry her for propriety's sake, and make her life
miserable for thirty, forty, fifty years. It would be propriety rather
for him to go away, to bury himself in the ends of the earth, until he
could forget Corona d'Astrardente, her splendid eyes, and her deep sweet
voice.

He had pledged his father his word that he would consider the marriage,
and he was to give his answer before Easter. That was a long time yet. He
would consider it; and if by Eastertide he had forgotten Corona, he
would--he laughed aloud in his silent room, and the sound of his voice
startled him from his reverie.

Forget? Did such men as he forget? Other men did. What were they made of?
They did not love such women, perhaps; that was the reason they forgot.
Any one could forget poor Donna Tullia. And yet how was it possible to
forget if one loved truly?

Giovanni had never believed himself in love before. He had known one or
two women who had attracted him strongly; but he had soon found out that
he had no real sympathy with them, that though they amused him they had
no charm for him--most of all, that he could not imagine himself tied to
any one of them for life without conceiving the situation horrible in the
extreme. To his independent nature the idea of such ties was repugnant:
he knew himself too courteous to break through the civilities of lif