"You called me a coward several times," replied Bosio, thinking to show a little strength by relenting slowly.
"Oh! but I did not mean it!" cried the countess. "Bosio, forgive me. I did not mean to say such things--indeed, I did not. But do you wonder that I am nervous? Say that you forgive me--"
"Of course I forgive you," answered Bosio, raising his eyebrows rather wearily. "I know that you are under a terrible strain--but you say things sometimes which are unjust and hard. I know what all this means to us both--but there must be some other way."
Matilde shook her head mournfully, as Bosio sat down beside her, already sinking back to his long-learned docility.
"There is no other way," she said. "There is certainly none, that is sure. I have thought it all over, as one thinks of everything when everything is in danger. The only other course is to throw ourselves upon Veronica's mercy--"
"Well? Why not?" asked Bosio, eagerly, as Don Teodoro's advice gained instant plausibility again. "She is kind, she is charitable, she will forgive everything and save you--"
"The shame of it, Bosio! Of confessing it all--and she may refuse. Veronica is not all kindness and charity. She is a Serra, as I am, and though she is a mere girl, if she takes it into her head to be hard and unforgiving, there would be no power on earth that could move her. She is not so unlike me, Bosio. You may think so because she is so unlike me in looks. She has the type of her father, poor Tommaso. But we Serra are all Serra--there is not much difference. No--do not interrupt me, dear. And as for your marriage, there is much to be said for it. It is time that you were married, you know. You and I have lived our lives, and we are not what we were. I shall always be fond of you--we shall always be more than friends--but always less than what we have been. It must have come sooner or later, Bosio, and it may as well come now. You know--we cannot be always young. And as for me, if I am not already old, I soon shall be."
The woman who had held him so long knew how to tempt him, sacrificing everything in the desperate straits to which she was reduced. Though he had loved her well, and sinfully, but truly, for so many years, his love had sometimes seemed an unbearable thraldom, to escape from which he would have given his heart piecemeal, though he should lose all the happiness life held for him, for the sake of a momentary freedom. Possibly, too, she knew that he never longed for that freedom so much as when she had just been most violent and despotic. She was prepared for the feeble dissent with which he answered her suggestion of separation. He would be the more easily persuaded to yield and marry Veronica.