“For about a fortnight now,” said she, “Ginevra has been coming in late.”
“Jean will not go fast enough,” cried the impatient old man, crossing over the breast of his blue coat; he snatched up his hat, crammed it on to his head, and was off.
“You will not get far,” his wife called after him.
In fact, the outer gate opened and shut, and the old mother heard Ginevra’s steps in the courtyard. Bartolomeo suddenly reappeared, carrying his daughter in triumph, while she struggled in his arms.
“Here she is! La Ginevra, la Ginevrettina, la Ginevrina, la Ginevrola, la Ginevretta, la Ginevra bella!”
“Father! you are hurting me!”
Ginevra was immediately set down with a sort of respect. She nodded her head with a graceful gesture to reassure her mother, who was alarmed, and to convey that it had been only an excuse. Then the Baroness’ pale, dull face regained a little color, and even a kind of cheerfulness. Piombo rubbed his hands together extremely hard—the most certain symptom of gladness; he had acquired the habit at Court when seeing Napoleon in a rage with any of his generals or ministers who served him ill, or who had committed some blunder. When once the muscles of his face were relaxed, the smallest line in his forehead expressed benevolence. These two old folks at this moment were exactly like drooping plants, which are restored to life by a little water after a long drought.
“Dinner, dinner!” cried the Baron, holding out his hand to Ginevra, whom he addressed as Signora Piombellina, another token of good spirits, to which his daughter replied with a smile.
“By the way,” said Piombo, as they rose from table, “do you know that your mother has remarked that for a month past you have stayed at the studio much later than usual? Painting before parents, it would seem.”
“Oh, dear father—”
“Ginevra is preparing some surprise for us, no doubt,” said the mother.
“You are going to bring me a picture of your painting?” cried the Corsican, clapping his hands.
“Yes, I am very busy at the studio,” she replied.
“What ails you, Ginevra? you are so pale,” asked her mother.
“No!” exclaimed the girl, with a resolute gesture. “No! it shall never be said that Ginevra Piombo ever told a lie in her life.”
On hearing this strange exclamation, Piombo and his wife looked at their daughter with surprise.
“I love a young man,” she added, in a broken voice. Then, not daring to look at her parents, her heavy eyelids drooped as if to veil the fire in her eyes.
“Is he a prince?” asked her father ironically; but his tone of voice made both the mother and daughter tremble.
“No, father,” she modestly replied, “he is a young man of no fortune—”
“Then is he so handsome?”
“He is unfortunate.”
“What is he?”
“As a comrade of Labédoyère’s he was outlawed, homeless; Servin hid him, and—”
“Servin is a good fellow, and did well,” cried Piombo. “But you, daughter, have done ill to love any man but your father—”
“Love is not within my control,” said Ginevra gently.
“I had flattered myself,” said her father, “that my Ginevra would be faithful to me till my death; that my care and her mother’s would be all she would have known; that our tenderness would never meet with a rival affection in her heart; that—”
“Did I ever reproach you for your fanatical devotion to Napoleon?” said Ginevra. “Have you never loved anyone but me? Have you not been away on Embassies for months at a time? Have I not borne your absence bravely? Life has necessities to which we must yield.”
“Ginevra!”
“No, you do not love me for my own sake, and your reproaches show intolerable selfishness.”
“And you accuse your father’s love!” cried Piombo with flaming looks.
“Father, I will never accuse you,” replied Ginevra, more gently than her trembling mother expected. “You have right on the side of your egoism, as I have right on the side of my love. Heaven is my witness that no daughter ever better fulfilled her duty to her parents. I have never known anything but love and happiness in what many daughters regard as obligations. Now, for fifteen years, I have never been anywhere but under your protecting wing, and it has been a very sweet delight to me to charm your lives. But am I then ungrateful in giving myself up to the joy of loving, and in wishing for a husband to protect me after you?”
“So you balance accounts with your father, Ginevra!” said the old man in ominous tones.
There was a frightful pause; no one dared to speak. Finally, Bartolomeo broke the silence by exclaiming in a heartrending voice: “Oh, stay with us; stay with your old father! I could not bare to see you love a man. Ginevra, you will not have long to wait for your liberty—”
“But, my dear father, consider; we shall not leave you, we shall be two to love you; you will know the man to whose care you will bequeath me. You will be doubly loved by me and by him—by him, being part of me, and by me who am wholly he.”
“Oh, Ginevra, Ginevra!” cried the Corsican, clenching his fists, “why were you not married when Napoleon had accustomed me to the
