“Is that meant for my son?” Countess Ammiani asked slowly, with incredulous emphasis.

Agostino and Laura, laughing in their hearts at the mother’s mysterious veneration for Carlo, had to explain that ‘gossamer’ was a poetic, generic term, to embrace the lighter qualities of masculine youth.

A woman’s figure passed swiftly by the window, which led Laura to suppose that the couple outside had parted.  She ran forth, calling to one of them, but they came hand in hand, declaring that they had seen neither woman nor man.  “And I am happy,” Vittoria whispered.  She looked happy, pale though she was.

“It is only my dreadful longing for rest which makes me pale,” she said to Laura, when they were alone.  “Carlo has proved to me that he is wiser than I am.”

“A proof that you love Carlo, perhaps,” Laura rejoined.

“Dearest, he speaks more gently of the king.”

“It may be cunning, or it may be carelessness.”

“Will nothing satisfy you, wilful sceptic?  He is quite alive to the Countess d’Isorella’s character.  He told me how she dazzled him once.”

“Not how she has entangled him now?”

“It is not true.  He told me what I should like to dream over without talking any more to anybody.  Ah, what a delight! to have known him, as you did, when he was a boy.  Can one who knew him then mean harm to him?  I am not capable of imagining it.  No; he will not abandon poor broken Lombardy, and he is right; and it is my duty to sit and wait.  No shadow shall come between us.  He has said it, and I have said it.  We have but one thing to fear, which is contemptible to fear; so I am at peace.”

“Love-sick,” was Laura’s mental comment.  Yet when Carlo explained his position to her next day, she was milder in her condemnation of him, and even admitted that a man must be guided by such brains as he possesses.  He had conceived that his mother had a right to claim one month from him at the close of the war; he said this reddening.  Laura nodded.  He confessed that he was irritated when he met the Countess d’Isorella, with whom, to his astonishment, he found Barto Rizzo.  She had picked him up, weak from a paroxysm, on the high-road to Milan.  “And she tamed the brute,” said Carlo, in admiration of her ability; “she saw that he was plot-mad, and she set him at work on a stupendous plot; agents running nowhere, and scribblings concentring in her work-basket.  You smile at me, as if I were a similar patient, signora.  But I am my own agent.  I have personally seen all my men in Turin and elsewhere.  Violetta has not one grain of love for her country; but she can be made to serve it.  As for me, I have gone too far to think of turning aside and drilling with Luciano.  He may yet be diverted from Rome, to strike another blow for Lombardy.  The Chief, I know, has some religious sentiment about Rome.  So might I have; it is the Head of Italy.  Let us raise the body first.  And we have been beaten here.  Great Gods! we will have another fight for it on the same spot, and quickly.  Besides, I cannot face Luciano and tell him why I was away from him in the dark hour.  How can I tell him that I was lingering to bear a bride to the altar? while he and the rest—­poor fellows!  Hard enough to have to mention it to you, signora!”