The Catanese and her son departed instantly, not even waiting to reply,
for they had got all they wanted; while Joan, trembling, ran desperately
up to Bertrand, who had angrily drawn his dagger, and would have fallen
upon the two favourites to take vengeance for the insults they had
offered to the queen; but he was very soon disarmed by the lovely
shining eyes raised to him in supplication, the two arms cast about
him, and the tears shed by Joan: he fell at her feet and kissed them
rapturously, with no thought of seeking excuse for his presence, with
no word of love, for it was as if they had loved always: he lavished the
tenderest caresses on her, dried her tears, and pressed his trembling
lips upon her lovely head. Joan began to forget her anger, her vows, and
her repentance: soothed by the music of her lover's speech, she
returned uncomprehending monosyllables: her heart beat till it felt like
breaking, and once more she was falling beneath love's resistless
spell, when a new interruption occurred, shaking her roughly out of
her ecstasy; but this time the young count was able to pass quietly
and calmly into a room adjoining, and Joan prepared to receive her
importunate visitor with severe and frigid dignity.

The individual who arrived at so inopportune a moment was little
calculated to smooth Joan's ruffled brow, being Charles, the eldest son
of the Durazzo family. After he had introduced his fair cousin to the
people as their only legitimate sovereign, he had sought on various
occasions to obtain an interview with her, which in all probability
would be decisive. Charles was one of those men who to gain their end
recoil at nothing; devoured by raging ambition and accustomed from his
earliest years to conceal his most ardent desires beneath a mask of
careless indifference, he marched ever onward, plot succeeding plot,
towards the object he was bent upon securing, and never deviated one