“A serious matter?” she cheerfully asked. “Ah, then I pity you, count. It is difficult to speak with me of serious matters!” “You rather do them!” said Alexis, carelessly throwing himself upon a divan. “You would not play with such serious things as, for instance, a dagger, and therefore you hurl it from you, altogether indifferent whether you thereby quite accidentally pierce the heart of another.” “I do not understand you, count,” said Corilla, without embarrassment, but at the same time she looked at him with such a charming and enticing expression, that Alexis involuntarily smiled. “I will make myself intelligible to you,” said he, in a milder tone. “You must understand, that I know you, Corilla. That assassin who followed the Princess Tartaroff at the festival of Cardinal Bernis, was employed by you, Signora Maddalena Morelli Fernandez, called Corilla!” “And what if it were true, Signor Alexis Orloff, called the handsome Northern Hercules?” asked she, roguishly imitating his grave seriousness. “If it were really true, what further?” Alexis looked in her face with an expression of astonishment. “You are wonderfully bold!” said he. “None but slaves are without courage!” responded she. “Freedom is the mother of boldness!” “You do not, then, deny the hiring of that bravo?” “I only deny your right to inquire,” said she. “I have a right to it,” he responded with vehemence. “This Princess Tartaroff is a subject of the Empress of Russia, my mistress, who watches over and protects all her subjects with maternal tenderness.” “That good, tender empress!” exclaimed Corilla, with an ambiguous smile. “But in order properly to watch and preserve all her children and subjects, she should keep them in her own country. Take this Princess Tartaroff with you to Russia, and then she will be safe from our Italian daggers. Take her with you; that will be the best way!” “You, then, very heartily hate this poor little princess?” asked Alexis, laughing. “Yes,” said she, after a short reflection, “I hate her. And would you know why, signor? Not for her beauty, not for her youth, but for her talents! And she has great talents! Ah, there was a time when I hated her, although I knew her not. But now, now it is different. I now not only hate, but fear her! For she can rival me, not only in love, but in fame! Ah, you should have seen her on that evening! She was like a swan to look at, and her song was like the dying strains of the swan. And all shouted applause, and all the women wept; indeed, I myself wept, not from emotion, but with rage, with bitterness, for they had forgotten me--forgotten, for this new poetess; they overwhelmed her with flatteries, leaving me alone and unnoticed! And yet you ask me if I hate her!”