I would have laughed at it once … If I weep about it now it is because I thought I had already entered for ever on a life of calm and dignity. But it is not sufficiently long since I broke with weakness and folly for others to think me sober and strong. These conversations about love, these outpourings, these confidences between a man and a woman at night are dangerous, and if you have had bad thoughts, all the fault lies in my imprudence. But let us not take it too seriously,” said she, wiping her eyes and smiling at her friend with wonderful gentleness. “I must accept this mortification as an expiation of my past sins, although I myself do not regard them as such. Perhaps I would have done better to be wanton rather than passionate. It would have harmed no-one but myself, whereas my passion has broken other hearts than mine. But what can you expect, Salvator? I was not born to have philosophical morals, as they used to be called once … Nor you, my friend … You deserve better than that! Ah, out of respect for yourself do not ask women for pleasure without love. Otherwise you will cease to be young before you are old and that is the worst of all moral states.”

“Lucrezia, you are an angel,” said Salvator. “I have insulted you and you speak to me as a mother would to her son. Let me kiss your feet, I am no longer worthy of kissing your brow. I do not think I shall ever dare to do so again.”

“Come and kiss more innocent brows,” she said, slipping her arm through his. “Come into my bedroom.”

“Your bedroom?” said he, trembling.

“Yes, my bedroom,” said she, with a frank laugh which no longer held any hint of bitterness. Leading him through her boudoir she brought him into a room draped with white, in which four little pink beds stood around a kind of quilted hammock suspended by silk cords. Madame Floriani’s four children were sleeping in this sanctuary and formed a kind of rampart around her aerial couch.

“I used to be very greedy for my sleep once,” she said to him, “and I had difficulty in awakening during the night to attend to my children after the fatigues of the theatre and society. Since I have been enjoying the happiness of living for them and with them at all hours of the day and night, I have grown accustomed to more vigilant habits. I perch like a bird on a branch close to its nest and my children cannot make a single movement without my hearing and being on the alert for them. You see, because I left them for two hours to-night I have been punished and have been troubled. Had I gone to bed with them as usual, at ten o’clock, I would not have remembered the past … Ah, the past, that is my enemy.”

“Your past, your present and your future are admirable, Lucrezia, and I would have given my whole life to have been you for a single day. I would be proud of it, and that day would be the most memorable in my life.. Farewell! My friend and I will leave to-morrow at daybreak. Allow me to kiss all your children, and give me your blessing. It will sanctify me, and when we see one another again, I shall be worthy of you.”

When Salvator Albani entered his bedroom it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. He went in cautiously and approached the bed on tiptoe, for fear of waking his friend whose silence and stillness made him think he was asleep.

However, before extinguishing the light, the young count, as was his habit, went and gently drew apart the curtains of the prince’s bed to make sure that he was sleeping peacefully. He was surprised to see that his eyes were open and staring at him as if questioning all his movements.

“Aren’t you asleep, my good Karol?” he said. “I have wakened you…”

“I haven’t been sleeping,” answered the prince in a voice which held a tinge of sadness and reproach. “I was worried about you.”

“Worried?” said Salvator, pretending not to understand. “Are we in a robbers’ lair? You are forgetting, we have made a stop at a pleasant villa among friendly people.”

“A stop,” said Karol, with a strange sigh. “That is just what I feared.”

“Oh! Oh! So your presentiment has not gone? Well, you will soon be rid of it Our stop will not last much longer. I shall throw myself on my bed for a couple of hours and we shall be away even before sunrise.”

“To meet again, and part thus,” said the prince, tossing on his bed in distress.