hey should be known respectively as Antonio Valpi and Guiseppe
Sagasta, and already Annunziata had bestowed upon her patient the
friendly and familiar diminutive of Tonio, a name to which he answered
with wildly beating heart and eyes that spoke volumes.

By means of shrewdly managed questions the young Viscount had
ascertained that the flower-girl had no lover, that her breast had never
owned the tender passion, and this intelligence added fuel to the flame
that was consuming him. It is not to be supposed that Annunziata was
ignorant of the strong impression she had made upon her youthful and
handsome patient. She was perfectly aware of it and secretly rejoiced at
the manifest exhibition of the power of her charms. Perhaps she did not
as yet love Giovanni, perhaps it was merely the general physical
attraction of a woman towards a man, or it might have been that innate
spice of coquetry common to every female, but the fact remained that she
tacitly encouraged the young Viscount in his ardent attentions to her.
She, moreover, lured and inflamed him in such a careless, innocent way
that she acquired additional piquancy thereby. Had Annunziata been a
designing woman of the world intent upon trapping a wealthy lover,
instead of a pure and artless country maid totally unconscious of the
harm she was working, she could not have played her game with more
effect. Giovanni had become altogether her slave. He hung upon her
smiles, drank her words and could hardly restrain himself in her
presence. No shipwrecked mariner ever more greedily devoured with his
dazzled eyes the fateful loreley of a rocky, deserted coast than he did
her. Had she been his social equal, had her intelligence and education
matched her personal beauty, he would have forgotten Zuleika, thrown
himself impetuously at her feet and solicited her hand. As it was, while
Monte-Cristo's daughter possessed his entire heart, Annunziata Solara
enslaved his senses.

She received his approaches as a matter-of-course, without diffidence,
without a blush. His gallant speeches pleased her, she did not know why.
So thoroughly unsuspicious was she, that she failed to notice his
language was not that of the untutored peasant he claimed to be, that
his bearing as well as his words indicated a degree of culture and
refinement far above his assumed station. She was dazzled, charmed by
him as the bird is by the glittering serpent with its wicked,
fascinating eyes. She thought of n