Carlo?" said the countess.

"Because, mother, if I speak to her, I shall end by throwing out my arms
and calling for the priest."

"I would clap hands to that."

"We will see; it may be soon or late, but it can't be now."

"How much am I to tell her, Carlo?"

"Enough to keep her from fretting."

The countess then asked herself how much she knew. Her habit of
receiving her son's word and will as supreme kept her ignorant of
anything beyond the outline of his plans; and being told to speak openly
of them to another, she discovered that her acquiescing imagination
supplied the chief part of her knowledge. She was ashamed also to have
it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered every detail of his
occupation, so that she could not argue against him, and had to submit
to see her dearest wishes lightly swept aside.

"I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess d'Isorella; not the
afterthought," she said to Vittoria.

"She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani."

"Call me mother now and then. Yes; she is beautiful. She has a bad
name."

"Envy must have given it, I think."

"Of course she provokes envy. But I say that her name is bad, as envy
could not make it. She is a woman who goes on missions, and carries
a husband into society like a passport. You have only thought of her
beauty?"

"I can see nothing else," said Vittoria, whose torture at the sight of
the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous pleading on its behalf.

"In my time Beauty was a sinner," the countess resumed. "My confessor
has filled my ears with warnings that it is a net to the soul, a weapon
for devils. May the saints of Paradise make bare the beauty of this
woman. She has persuaded Carlo that she is serving the country. You have
let him lie here alone in a fruitless bed, silly girl. He stayed for you
while his comrades called him to Vercelli, where they are assembled.
The man whom he salutes as his Chief gave him word to go there. They
are bound for Rome. Ah me! Rome is a great name, but Lombardy is Carlo's
natal home, and Lombardy bleeds. You were absent--how long you were
absent! If you could know the heaviness of those days of his waiting for
you. And it was I who kept him here! I must have omitted a prayer, for
he would have been at Vercelli now with Luciano and Emilio, and you
might have gone to him; but he met this woman, who has convinced him
that Piedmont will make a Winter march, and that his marriage must be
delayed."