“What does it matter?” echoed the Prince.  “You are to be married so soon.  I really think we can do as we please.”  He generally did as he pleased.

The two men left her, and a few minutes later she descended the steps of the palace and entered her carriage, as though nothing had happened.

Six months had passed since she had given her troth to Giovanni upon the tower of Saracinesca, and she knew that she loved him better now than then.  Little had happened of interest in the interval of time, and the days had seemed long.  But until after Christmas she had remained at Astrardente, busying herself constantly with the improvements she had already begun, and aided by the counsels of Giovanni.  He had taken a cottage of hers in the lower part of her village, and had fitted it up with the few comforts he judged necessary.  In this lodging he had generally spent half the week, going daily to the palace upon the hill and remaining for long hours in Corona’s society, studying her plans and visiting with her the works which grew beneath their joint direction.  She had grown to know him as she had not known him before, and to understand more fully his manly character.  He was a very resolute man, and very much in earnest when he chanced to be doing anything; but the strain of melancholy which he inherited from his mother made him often inclined to a sort of contemplative idleness, during which his mind seemed preoccupied with absorbing thoughts.  Many people called his fits of silence an affectation, or part of his system for rendering himself interesting; but Corona soon saw how real was his abstraction, and she saw also that she alone was able to attract his attention and interest him when the fit was upon him.  Slowly, by a gradual study of him, she learned what few had ever guessed, namely, that beneath the experienced man of the world, under his modest manner and his gentle ways, there lay a powerful mainspring of ambition, a mine of strength, which would one day exert itself and make itself felt upon his surroundings.  He had developed slowly, feeding upon many experiences of the world in many countries, his quick Italian intelligence comprehending often more than it seemed to do, while the quiet dignity he got from his Spanish blood made him appear often very cold.  But now and again, when under the influence of some large idea, his tongue was loosed in the charm of Corona’s presence, and he spoke to her, as he had never spoken to any one, of projects and plans which should make the world move.  She did not always understand him wholly, but she knew that the man she loved was something more than the world at large believed him to be, and there was a thrill of pride in the thought which delighted her inmost soul.  She, too, was ambitious, but her ambition was all for him.  She felt that there was little room for common aspirations in his position or in her own.  All that high birth, and wealth, and personal consideration could give, they both had