As we returned to the villa at Cafaggiolo, by dint of allowing my travelling companion to give a free rein to her heroic declamations, her digressions and her boasting, I succeeded, not without difficulty, in finding out that honest Nasi had been fascinated at a ball by a lovely young person, and had asked her hand in marriage; that he had gone to Checchina to inform her of his determination; that, as she had adopted the expedient of fainting and going into convulsions, he had been so dismayed by the violence of her despair, that he had begged her to consent to a middle course and to remain his mistress in spite of his marriage. Thereupon Checchina, seeing that he was weakening, had haughtily refused to share her lover's heart and purse. She had ordered post-horses, and had signed, or pretended to sign, an engagement with the Opera at Paris. The easy-going Nasi had been unable to endure the thought of giving up a woman whom he was not sure that he had ceased to adore, for a woman whom he was not sure that he had begun to adore. He had begged the singer's forgiveness; he had retracted his offer of marriage, and had ceased his attentions to the illustrious beauty, whose name Checchina did not know. Checchina had allowed herself to be prevailed upon; but she had learned indirectly, on the day following this great sacrifice, that Nasi was entitled to no great credit therefor, inasmuch as, between the scene of frenzied despair and the reconciliation, his offer of marriage had been rejected, and he had been cast aside in favor of a happy rival. Checchina, wounded to the quick, had left Naples, leaving a withering letter for the count, in which she declared that she would never see him again; and, taking the road to France--for all roads lead to Paris as well as to Rome--she hastened to Cafaggiolo to wait until her lover should come in pursuit of her, and place his body across her path to prevent her from proceeding farther with a vengeance of which she was beginning to be a little weary. All this was not mere vulgar and avaricious scheming on Checchina's part. She loved opulence, it is true, and could not do without it; but she had such implicit faith in her destiny, and was naturally so audacious, that she constantly risked the good fortune of one day for that of the morrow. She passed the Rubicon every morning, confident of finding on the other bank a more flourishing realm than the one she left behind. Thus there was nothing base and low-minded in this feminine trickery, because there was in it no element of fear. She did not play at grief; she made neither false promises nor hypocritical prayers. In her moments of vexation she had genuine paroxysms of nervous excitement. Why were her lovers so credulous as to mistake the vehemence of her anger for the result of profound grief resisted by pride? Is it not our own fault when we are duped by our own vanity?