hunned the two or
three minutes of privacy with his betrothed which the rigorous Italian
laws besetting courtship might have allowed him to take. He had
perpetually the look of a man starting from wine. It was evident that he
and Countess d'Isorella continued to hold close communication, for she
came regularly to the villa to meet him. On these occasions Countess
Ammiani accorded her one ceremonious interview, and straightway locked
herself in her room. Violetta's grace of ease and vivacity soared too
high to be subject to any hostile judgement of her character. She seemed
to rely entirely on the force of her beauty, and to care little for
those who did not acknowledge it. She accepted public compliments quite
royally, nor was Agostino backward in offering them. "And you have
a voice, you know," he sometimes said aside to Vittoria; but she had
forgotten how easily she could swallow great praise of her voice; she
had almost forgotten her voice. Her delight was to hang her head above
inverted mountains in the lake, and dream that she was just something
better than the poorest of human creatures. She could not avoid putting
her mind in competition with this brilliant woman's, and feeling
eclipsed; and her weakness became pitiable. But Countess d'Isorella
mentioned once that Pericles was at the Villa Ricciardi, projecting
magnificent operatic entertainments. The reviving of a passion to sing
possessed Vittoria like a thirst for freedom, and instantly confused all
the reflected images within her, as the fury of a sudden wind from the
high Alps scourges the glassy surface of the lake. She begged Countess
Ammiani's permission that she might propose to Pericles to sing in his
private operatic company, in any part, at the shortest notice.

"You wish to leave me?" said the countess, and resolutely conceived it.

Speaking to her son on this subject, she thought it necessary to make
some excuse for a singer's instinct, who really did not live save on the
stage. It amused Carlo; he knew when his mother was really angry with
persons she tried to shield from the anger of others; and her not seeing
the wrong on his side in his behaviour to his betrothed was laughable.
Nevertheless she had divined the case more correctly than he: the
lover was hurt. After what he had endured, he supposed, with all his
forgiveness, that he had an illimitable claim upon his bride's patience.
He told his another to speak to her openly.

"Why not you, my