him: but, mind, I half doat on the wretch. No man made me desperately in
love with myself before he saw me, when I stopped his raving in the
middle of the road with one look of my face. There was foam on his beard
and round his eyes; the poor wretch took out his handkerchief, and he
sobbed. I don't know how many luckless creatures he had killed on his
way; but when I took him into my carriage--king, emperor, orator on
stilts, minister of police not one has flattered me as he did, by just
gazing at me. Beauty can do as much as music, my Carlo."

Carlo thanked heaven that Violetta had no passion in her nature. She had
none: merely a leaning toward evil, a light sense of shame, a desire for
money, and in her heart a contempt for the principles she did not
possess, but which, apart from the intervention of other influences,
could occasionally sway her actions. Friendship, or rather the shadowy
recovery of a past attachment that had been more than friendship,
inclined her now and then to serve a master who failed distinctly to
represent her interests; and when she met Carlo after the close of the
war, she had really set to work in hearty kindliness to rescue him from
what she termed "shipwreck with that disastrous Republican crew." He had
obtained greater ascendency over her than she liked; yet she would have
forgiven it, as well as her consequent slight deviation from direct
allegiance to her masters in various cities, but for Carlo's commanding
personal coolness. She who had tamed a madman by her beauty, was
outraged, and not unnaturally, by the indifference of a former lover.

Later in the day, Laura and Vittoria, with Agostino, reached the villa;
and Adela put her lips to Vittoria's ear, whispering: "Naughty! when are
you to lose your liberty to turn men's heads?" and then she heaved a
sigh with Wilfrid's name. She had formed the acquaintance of Countess
d'Isorella in Turin, she said, and satisfactorily repeated her lesson,