know him, and he hates me accordingly. If he could stab me with safety
to himself I shouldn't be alive two seconds. I have never said one
word of all this to Beatrix. The last and constant insult Geranno
offers me is to suppose that I am capable of communicating my sad
knowledge of him to her; but he has no belief in the good feeling of
any human being. Even now he is playing a part with me; he is posing
as a man who is wretched at having left me. You will find what I may
call the most penetrating cordiality about him; he is winning; he is
chivalrous. To him, all women are madonnas. One must live with him
long before we get behind the veil of this false chivalry and learn
the invisible signs of his humbug. His tone of conviction about
himself might almost deceive the Deity. You will be entrapped, my dear
child, by his catlike manners, and you will never believe in the
profound and rapid arithmetic of his inmost thought. But enough; let
us leave him. I pushed indifference so far as to receive them together
in my house. This circumstance kept that most perspicacious of all
societies, the great world of Paris, ignorant of the affair. Though
intoxicated with pride, Gennaro was compelled to dissimulate; and he
did it admirably. But violent passions will have their freedom at any
cost. Before the end of the year, Beatrix whispered in my ear one
evening: 'My dear Felicite, I start to-morrow for Italy with Conti.' I
was not surprised; she regarded herself as united for life to Gennaro,
and she suffered from the restraints imposed upon her; she escaped one
evil by rushing into a greater. Conti was wild with happiness,--the
happiness of vanity alone. 'That's what it is to love truly,' he said
to me. 'How many women are there who would sacrifice their lives,
their fortune, their reputation?'--'Yes, she loves you,' I replied,
'but you do not love her.' He was furious, and made me a scene; he
stormed, he declaimed, he depicted his love, declaring that he had
never supposed it possible to love as much. I remained impassible, and