"I expect you to show the same courage that I am showing. I never said I loved you. I never deceived you in that. I said I would be your wife. So I will, faithfully. I haven't so much heart as you think; and yet, too, I have a great deal more. I am incapable of more than one deception.--Mercy! didn't you see it? didn't you know it? see that I saw it? know that I knew it? It was diamond cut diamond. You deceived me; I deceived you. Now that your deception ceases, mine ceases. _Now_ we are free, with our hundred thousand a year! Excuse me, but it sometimes comes across me! _Now_ we can be good and honest and true. It was all a make-believe virtue before." "So you read that thing?" I asked: actually--strange as it may seem--for something to say. "Yes, while you were ill. It was lying with your pen in it, on the table. I read it because I suspected. Otherwise I shouldn't have done so." "It was the act of a false woman," said I. "A false woman? No,--simply of a woman. I am a woman, Sir." And she began to smile. "Come, _you_ be a man!" RIVIERA DI PONENTE. 1. On this lovely Western Shore, where no tempests rage and roar, Over olive-bearing mountains, by the deep and violet sea, There, through each long happy day, winding slowly on our way, Travellers from across the ocean, toward Italia journeyed we,-- Each long day, that, richer, fairer, Showed the charming Riviera. 2. There black war-ships doze at anchor, in the Bay of Villa-Franca; Eagle-like, gray Esa, clinging to its rocky perch, looks down; And upon the mountain dim, ruined, shattered, stern, and grim, Turbia sees us through the ages with its austere Roman frown,-- While we climb, where cooler, rarer Breezes sweep the Riviera. 3. Down the hillside steep and stony, through the old streets of Mentone, Quiet, half-forgotten city of a drowsy prince and time, Through the mild Italian midnight, rolls upon the wave the moonlight, Murmuring in our dreams the cadence of a strange Ligurian rhyme,-- Rhymes in which each heart is sharer, Journeying on the Riviera. 4. When the morning air comes purer, creeping up in our vettura, Eastward gleams a rosy tumult with the rising of the day; Toward the north, with gradual changes, steal along the mountain-ranges Tender tints of warmer feeling, kissing all their peaks of gray; And far south the waters wear a Smile along the Riviera. 5.