"What has this to do with it?" he said, angrily. "You could have spoken just as you are speaking now. Well, speak on. Say again what you said a minute ago. You said that you reproached yourself a thousand times as having been the cause of this--calumny. What did you mean?" "You aren't listening. I reproached myself for having involuntarily given birth to this calumny, by constraining you to become that woman's slave. It was natural people should be suspicious. They are suspicious also of men much richer and much less attractive than you. Madame got rid of the others, Cavaliere R---- and Signor S----, to make a place for you. Naturally, those men spoke ill of you. Probably they started it. However," she continued, returning to her first point, "remember, Antonio, that I repented of my caprice. Remember well. I gave up all my pretensions and follies and came home to you because I had at last understood that your love was all I required for happiness." "You said so, I know. But I didn't believe you. You said it because you pitied me. I didn't want your pity, Regina!" he went on, drawing a deep breath, as if struggling with a sob. "Now it is I who am playing the sentimental part, saying that you had humiliated me overmuch because I--had not tried to content you. Shall I follow your lead and say I am not like other men? Better or worse--who knows? I don't set up to be _superior_, as you do" (his voice shook with angry grief). "I'll call myself inferior, yes--a little _bourgeois_! How often have you not thrown that in my teeth! But for that very reason----What was I saying?" Regina, overwhelmed herself by a strange mingling of grief and contempt, replied ironically-- "You were saying that we are two beings unlike the rest of the world, a hero and heroine of romance, in fact. Perhaps some day Gabrie will pick us up, as one picks mushrooms!" "At this moment, with your scornful superiority, you are a poisonous mushroom!" Regina had been staring straight before her, with eyes lost in the luminous distance. Now she turned to look at him, ready to make a bitter reply. But she saw his face so grey and miserable she did not venture to speak. What, moreover, could she say? Why continue vainly to beat about the bush, talking of the edifice of their error, without daring to penetrate within it? Antonio went on--