Paul Desfrayne looked at the excited face of Gilardoni in a strange, contemplative silence for a moment or two, as the Italian paused. The dark, foreign face was lividly pale from passion; the dark, gleaming eyes were burning with inward fire. “I thought you assured me just this moment,” observed the young officer, “that Lucia Guiscardini had not jilted you. If you loved her, and she declared she reciprocated your affection, why, it is to be imagined that the course of true love must have run tolerably smooth. A little hypocrisy, I believe, is supposed to be pardonable with the feminine part of our common humanity. If she said she loved you, her affection was next best to reality.” “She declared she loved me. I believed her,” said Gilardoni fiercely. “I believed her because--I supposed because I wished it to be true. I fancied no man was ever so happy as I. For a while I walked no longer on earth, but on roseate clouds of happiness. I despise myself when I look back on that time. Perhaps I am not the first who has been betrayed into folly by the arts and wiles of a beautiful, treacherous girl,” the Italian added, shrugging his shoulders. “You have not yet given me the slightest idea of the reason why you so cordially dislike Madam Guiscardini, if that be her correct designation,” said Captain Desfrayne. “You indulge in the most vehement invectives against her, yet state no specific charge. You say you made a fool of yourself about her, and that she laughed in her sleeve at your declarations of affection. Certainly, very shabby on her part, but, then, it is a thing beautiful, vain, silly women do every day. Why should you cherish such rancor against her? I suppose she found she could make a better market of her beauty and wonderful talents than by disposing of them to a man who could never hope to raise her beyond the level of, say, a wealthy farmer’s wife. Do not be too severe upon her.” “If she had laughed at me, and left me,” cried Gilardoni, throwing out his hands with impetuosity, “I could have forgiven her; I might have forgotten her. It could not have been that I could ever have loved again; but what of that? I do not believe in love _now_. But no. She left the poison of her treacherous touch upon my life. I could kill her, if she were within my reach.” “Such hate must be justified by very serious provocation,” said Paul Desfrayne. “May I ask how your love was turned to such bitter gall, since your suit prospered in the first instance?” “By deeds of the blackest treachery.” “In a word, may I ask--since we are playing at the game of question and answer--may I once more ask, why do you hate the beautiful Lucia Guiscardini? She did not jilt you, you say--then what relationship does she hold toward you?”