but her. I was in that high delirium of passion in which love, and
love only, seems the keynote of creation. I touched the topmost peak
of the height of joy--the days were feasts of fairy-land, the nights
dreams of rapture! No; I never tired! My wife's beauty never palled
upon me; she grew fairer with each day of possession. I never saw
her otherwise than attractive, and within a few months she had
probed all the depths of my nature. She discovered how certain sweet
looks of hers could draw me to her side, a willing and devoted
slave; she measured my weakness with her own power; she knew--what
did she not know? I torture myself with these foolish memories. All
men past the age of twenty have learned somewhat of the tricks of
women--the pretty playful nothings that weaken the will and sap the
force of the strongest hero. She loved me? Oh, yes, I suppose so!
Looking back on those days, I can frankly say I believe she loved
me--as nine hundred wives out of a thousand love their husbands,
namely--for what they can get. And I grudged her nothing. If I chose
to idolize her, and raise her to the stature of an angel when she
was but on the low level of mere womanhood, that was my folly, not
her fault.

We kept open house. Our villa was a place of rendezvous for the
leading members of the best society in and around Naples. My wife
was universally admired; her lovely face and graceful manners were
themes of conversation throughout the whole neighborhood. Guido
Ferrari, my friend, was one of those who were loudest in her praise,
and the chivalrous homage he displayed toward her doubly endeared
him to me. I trusted him as a brother; he came and went as pleased
him; he brought Nina gifts of flowers and fanciful trifles adapted
to her taste, and treated her with fraternal and delicate kindness.
I deemed my happiness perfect--with love, wealth, and friendship,