she lifted a hand to his lips.
"Ah, how angry I was then--but why be angry now? It all happened so long
ago; and if it had not happened--who knows?--perhaps you would never
have pitied me enough to love me as you did." She laughed softly,
reminiscently, leaning back as if to let the tide of memories ripple
over her. Then she raised her head suddenly, and said in a changed
voice: "Are your plans fixed for tomorrow?"

Odo glanced at her in surprise. Her mind seemed to move as capriciously
as Maria Clementina's.

"The constitution is signed," he answered, "and my ministers proclaim it
tomorrow morning." He looked at her a moment, and lifted her hand to his
lips. "Everything has been done according to your wishes," he said.

She drew away with a start, and he saw that she had turned pale. "No,
no--not as I wish," she murmured. "It must not be because _I_ wish--"
she broke off and her hand slipped from his.

"You have taught me to wish as you wish," he answered gently. "Surely
you would not disown your pupil now?"

Her agitation increased. "Do not call yourself that!" she exclaimed.
"Not even in jest. What you have done has been done of your own
choice--because you thought it best for your people. My nearness or
absence could have made no difference."

He looked at her with growing wonder. "Why this sudden modesty?" he said
with a smile. "I thought you prided yourself on your share in the great
work."

She tried to force an answering smile, but the curve broke into a quiver
of distress, and she came close to him, with a gesture that seemed to
take flight from herself.

"Don't say it, don't say it!" she broke out. "What right have they to
call it my doing? I but stood aside and watched you and gloried in
you--is there any guilt to a woman in THAT?" She clung to him a moment,
hiding her face in his breast.

He loosened her arms gently, that he might draw back and look at her.
"Fulvia," he asked, "what ails you? You are not yourself tonight. Has
anything happened to distress you? Have you been annoyed or alarmed in
any way?--It is not possible," he broke off, "that Trescorre has been
here--?"

She drew away, flushed and protesting. "No, no," she exclaimed. "Why
should Trescorre come here? Why should you fancy that any one has been
here? I am excited, I know; I talk idly; but it is because I have been
thinking too long of these things--"

"Of what things?"

"Of what people say--how can one help hearing that? I s