my eye. But pray, signor, do not believe these stories about my
science. Believe nothing of me save what you see with your own
eyes."

"And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?" asked
Giovanni, pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made
him shrink. "No, signora; you demand too little of me. Bid me
believe nothing save what comes from your own lips."

It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep
flush to her cheek; but she looked full into Giovanni's eyes, and
responded to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike
haughtiness.

"I do so bid you, signor," she replied. "Forget whatever you may
have fancied in regard to me. If true to the outward senses,
still it may be false in its essence; but the words of Beatrice
Rappaccini's lips are true from the depths of the heart outward.
Those you may believe."

A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni's
consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke
there was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and
delightful, though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an
indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It
might be the odor of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice's breath
which thus embalmed her words with a strange richness, as if by
steeping them in her heart? A faintness passed like a shadow over
Giovanni and flitted away; he seemed to gaze through the
beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent soul, and felt no more