I think it is the fact that love, though no doubt it may run as strong with an Italian or with an Austrian as it does with us English, is not allowed to run with so uncontrollable a stream. Young lovers, and especially young women, are more subject to control, and are less inclined to imagine that all things should go as they would have them. Nina, when she was made to understand that the war was come, that her brother was leaving her and her mother and Venice, that he might fight for them, that an Austrian must for the time be regarded as an enemy in that house, resolved with a slow, melancholy firmness that she would accept the circumstances of her destiny.
“If I fall,” said Carlo, “you must then manage for yourself. I would not wish to bind you after my death.”
“Do not talk like that, Carlo.”
“Nay, my child, but I must talk like that; and it is at least well that we should understand each other. I know that you will keep your promise to me.”
“Yes,” said Nina; “I will keep my promise.”
“Till I come back, or till I be dead, you will not again see Captain von Vincke; or till the cause be gained.”
“I will not see him, Carlo, till you come back, or till the cause be gained.”
“Or till I be dead. Say it after me.”
“Or till you be dead, if I must say it.”
But there was a clause in the contract that she was to see her lover once before her brother left them. She had acknowledged the propriety of her brother’s behests, backed as they came to be at last by their mother; but she declared through it all that she had done no wrong, and that she would not be treated as though she were an offender. She would see her lover and tell him what she pleased. She would obey her brother, but she would see her lover first. Indeed, she would make no promise of obedience at all, would promise disobedience instead, unless she were allowed to see him. She would herself write to him and bid him come.
This privilege was at last acceded to her, and Captain von Vincke was summoned to the Campo San Luca. The morning sitting-room of the Signora Pepé was up two pairs of stairs, and the stairs were not paved as are the stairs of the palaces in Venice. But the room was large and lofty, and seemed to be larger than its size from the very small amount of furniture which it contained. The floor was of hard, polished cement, which looked like variegated marble, and the amount of carpet upon it was about four yards long, and was extended simply beneath the two chairs in which sat habitually the Signora and her daughter. There were two large mirrors and a large gold clock, and a large table and a small table, a small sofa and six chairs, and that was all. In England the room would have received ten times as much furniture, or it would not have been furnished at all. And there were in it no more than two small books, belonging both to Nina, for the Signora read but little. In England, in such a sitting-room, tables, various tables, would have been strewed with books; but then, perhaps, Nina Pepé’s eye required the comfort of no other volumes than those she was actually using.
Nina was alone in the room when her lover came to her. There had been a question whether her mother should or should not be present; but Nina had been imperative, and she received him alone.
“It is to bid you goodbye, Hubert,” she said, as she got up and touched his hand—just touched his hand.
“Not for long, my Nina.”
“Who can say for how long, now that the war is upon us? As far as I can see, it will be for very long. It is better that you should know it all. For myself, I think, I fear that it will be forever.”
“Forever! why forever?”
“Because I cannot marry an enemy of Italy. I do not think that we can ever succeed.”
“You can never succeed.”
“Then I can never be your wife. It is so, Hubert; I see that it must be so. The loss is to me, not to you.”
“No, no—no. The loss is to me—to me.”
“You have your profession, You are a soldier. I am nothing.”
“You are all in all to me.”
“I can be nothing, I shall be nothing, unless I am your wife. Think how I must long for that which you say is so impossible. I do long for it; I shall long for it. Oh, Hubert! go and lose your cause: let our men have their Venice. Then come to me, and your country shall be my country, and your people my people.”
As she said this she gently laid her hand upon his arm, and the touch of her fingers thrilled through his whole frame. He put out his arms as though to grasp her in his embrace.
“No, Hubert—no; that must not be till Venice is our own.”
“I wish it were,” he said; “but it will never be so. You may make me a traitor in heart, but that will not drive out fifty thousand troops from the fortresses.”
“I do not understand these things, Hubert, and I have felt your country’s power to be so strong, that I cannot now doubt it.”
“It is absurd to doubt
