mind of the ingrate who dares to reproach me with it."

Bettina was shedding tears: all she had said was not unlikely and rather
complimentary to my vanity, but I had seen too much. Besides, I knew the
extent of her cleverness, and it was very natural to lend her a wish to
deceive me; how could I help thinking that her visit to me was prompted
only by her self-love being too deeply wounded to let me enjoy a victory
so humiliating to herself? Therefore, unshaken in my preconceived
opinion, I told her that I placed implicit confidence in all she had just
said respecting the state of her heart previous to the playful nonsense
which had been the origin of my love for her, and that I promised never
in the future to allude again to my accusation of seduction. "But," I
continued, "confess that the fire at that time burning in your bosom was
only of short duration, and that the slightest breath of wind had been
enough to extinguish it. Your virtue, which went astray for only one
instant, and which has so suddenly recovered its mastery over your
senses, deserves some praise. You, with all your deep adoring love for
me, became all at once blind to my sorrow, whatever care I took to make
it clear to your sight. It remains for me to learn how that virtue could
be so very dear to you, at the very time that Cordiani took care to wreck
it every night."

Bettina eyed me with the air of triumph which perfect confidence in
victory gives to a person, and said: "You have just reached the point
where I wished you to be. You shall now be made aware of things which I
could not explain before, owing to your refusing the appointment which I
then gave you for no other purpose than to tell you all the truth.
Cordiani declared his love for me a week after he became an inmate in our
house; he begged my consent to a marriage, if his father made the demand
of my hand as soon as he should have completed his studies. My answer was