efforts. The two
noblemen spoke in accord on the bubble revolution. The strong hand--ay,
the strong hand! The strong hand disposes of vermin. Laura listened
to them, pallid with silent torture. "Since the rascals have taken
to assassination, we know that we have them at the dregs," said Count
Lenkenstein. "A cord round the throats of a few scores of them, and the
country will learn the virtue of docility."

Laura whispered to her sister: "Have you espoused a hangman?"

Such dropping of deadly shells in a quiet society went near to
scattering it violently; but the union was necessitous. Count
Lenkenstein desired to confront Vittoria with Angelo; Laura would not
quit her side, and Amalia would not expel her friend. Count Lenkenstein
complained roughly of Laura's conduct; nor did Laura escape her father's
reproof. "Sir, you are privileged to say what you will to me," she
responded, with the humility which exasperated him.

"Yes, you bend, you bend, that you may be stiff-necked when it suits
you," he snapped her short.

"Surely that is the text of the sermon you preach to our Italy!"

"A little more, as you are running on now, madame, and our Italy will be
froth on the lips. You see, she is ruined."

"Chi lo fa, lo sa," hummed Laura; "but I would avoid quoting you as that
authority."

"After your last miserable fiasco, my dear!"

"It was another of our school exercises. We had not been good boys
and girls. We had learnt our lesson imperfectly. We have received our
punishment, and we mean to do better next time."

"Behave seasonably, fittingly; be less of a wasp; school your tongue."

"Bianca is a pattern to me, I am aware," said Laura.

"She is a good wife."

"I am a poor widow."

"She is a good daughter."

"I am a wicked rebel."

"And you are scheming at something now," said the little nobleman,
sagacious so far; but he was too eager to read the verification of the
tentative remark in her face, and she perceived that it was a guess
founded on her show of spirit.

"Scheming to contain my temper, which is much tried," she said. "But I
suppose it supports me. I can always keep up against hostility."

"You provoke it; you provoke it."

"My instinct, then, divines my medicine."

"Exactly, my dear; your personal instinct. That instigates you all. And
none are so easily conciliated as these Austrians. Conciliate them, and
you have them." Count Serabiglione diverged into a repetition of his
theory of the p