Magnani tried to be playful, and imagined that he was very much relieved to find that he was not called upon to defend himself against Mila's love; but it saddened him to hear the girl declare her affection for another, and his candid face expressed, despite his efforts, a painful disappointment. Had she not previously confessed it to him during their long vigil, and had she not by that confidence invested him in a certain sense with the duties of a brother? He was determined to execute worthily that sacred mission; but how did it happen that a moment before it had startled him to see her in anger, and why had his heart, nourished so long upon an insane and bitter passion, felt suddenly revivified and rejuvenated by the unexpected presence of this child who had entered through his window like a sunbeam? Mila was stealthily watching him. She saw that she had struck home. "O untamed heart," she said to herself, with silent but intense joy, "I have you now; you shall not escape me." "My dear neighbor," said the artful minx, "pray do not be offended at what I have just told you, and do not look upon it as an affront to your merit. I know that any other than myself would be flattered to be compromised by you, with the hope of becoming your wife; but I am neither a liar nor a flirt. I am in love, and, as I have confidence in you, I tell you of it. I know that it cannot cause you any pain, since you have given up all thought of marriage, and since you detest all women, except a single one who is not myself." Magnani made no reply. The cobbler was still singing. "It is my fate," thought Magnani, "not to be loved by any woman and never to be cured of my love." Mila, inspired by that species of divination which love gives to women, even to those who have had no experience and have read but little, said to herself--and justly--that Magnani, being stimulated in his passion by suffering and absence of hope, would be alarmed and repelled at the idea of love being offered to him unasked--a too-ready, alluring love; consequently she represented herself as invulnerable and protected against him by another attachment. In that way she lured him by making him suffer, and that was, in truth, the only way in which he could be lured. By changing the form of his torture, she paved the way for his cure. "Mila," he said to her at last, pointing to a heavy ring of chased gold which he wore on his finger, and which she had already noticed, "can you tell me the source of this beautiful present?"