And I laughed aloud! She trembled a little, but soon laughed also.
"I know I am very absurd," she said, "perhaps I am a little nervous and unstrung: I have had too much excitement lately. Tell me more about the jewels. When will you take me to see them?"
"To-morrow night," I answered, "while the ball is going on, you and I will slip away together--we shall return again before any of our friends can miss us. You will come with me?"
"Of course I will," she replied, readily, "only we must not be long absent, because my maid will have to pack my wedding-dress, and then there will be the jewels also to put in my strong box. Let me see! We stay the night at the hotel, and leave for Rome and Paris the first thing in the morning, do we not?"
"That is the arrangement, certainly," I said, with a cold smile.
"The little place where you have hidden your jewels, you droll Cesare, is quite near then?" she asked.
"Quite near," I assented, watching her closely.
She laughed and clapped her hands.
"Oh, I must have them," she exclaimed. "It would be ridiculous to go to Paris without them. But why will you not get them yourself, Cesare, and bring them here to me?"
"There are so many," I returned, quietly, "and I do not know which you would prefer. Some are more valuable than others. And it will give me a special satisfaction--one that I have long waited for--to see you making your own choice."
She smiled half shyly, half cunningly.
"Perhaps I will make no choice," she whispered, "perhaps I will take them ALL, Cesare. What will you say then?"
"That you are perfectly welcome to them," I replied.
She looked slightly surprised.
"You are really too good to me, caro mio," she said; "you spoil me."
"CAN you be spoiled?" I asked, half jestingly. "Good women are like fine brilliants--the more richly they are set the more they shine."
She stroked my hand caressingly.
"No one ever made such pretty speeches to me as you do!" she murmured.
"Not even Guido Ferrari?" I suggested, ironically.
She drew herself up with an inimitably well-acted gesture of lofty disdain.
"Guido Ferrari!" she exclaimed. "He dared not address me save with the greatest respect! I was as a queen to him! It was only lately that he began to presume on the trust left him by my husband, and then he became too familiar--a mistake on his part, for which YOU punished him--as he deserved!"