"If you mean to marry her, do not. Take advice. My mother has seen it," Nera added, with well-simulated horror. "She would not let me read it."
Now this was the sheerest malice. Madame Boccarini had never seen the sonnet. But if she had, there was not one word in the sonnet that might not have been addressed to the Blessed Virgin herself.
"No, I will not see the sonnet," said Nobili, firmly. "Not that I will marry her, but because I do not choose to see the woman I loved befouled. If it is what you say--and I believe you implicitly--let it lie like other dirt, I will not stir it."
"A generous fellow!" thought Nera. "How I could have loved him! But not now, not now."
"You have been the object of a base fraud," continued Nera. Nera would follow to the end artistically; not leave her work half done.
"She has deceived me. I know she has deceived me," cried Nobili, with a pang he could not hide. "She has deceived me, and I loved her!"
His voice sounded like the cry of a hunted animal.
Nera did not like this. Her work was not complete. Nobili's obstinate clinging to Enrica chafed her.
"Did Enrica ever speak to you of her engagement to Count Marescotti?" she asked. She grew impatient, and must probe the wound.
"Heavens! What falseness! Why, she has passed days and days alone with him."
"No, not alone," interrupted Nobili, stung with a sense of his own shame.
"Oh, you excuse her!" Nera laughed bitterly. "Poor count, believe me. I tell you what others conceal."
Nobili shuddered. His face grew black as night.
"Do not see that sonnet if you persist in marriage. If not, your course is clear--fly. If Enrica Guinigi has the smallest sense of decency, she cannot urge the marriage."
And Nobili heard this in silence! Oh, shame, and weakness and passion of hot blood; and women's eyes, and cruel, bitter tongues; and jealousy, maddening jealousy, hideous, formless, vague, reaching he knew not whither I Oh, shame!
"Write to her, and say you have discovered that she was in league with her aunt, and had other lovers. Every one knows it."
"But, Nera, if I do, will you comfort me? I shall need it." Nobili opened both his arms. His eyes clung wildly to hers. She was his only hope.
Nera did not move; only she turned her head away to hide her face from him. She dared not let Nobili move her. Poor Nobili! She could have loved him dearly!