"Indeed--what!--I understand.Sacre bleu! but you are a lucky fellow, cher confrere.""Silence, man! with thy eternal prate of brotherhood and virtue, thou seemest never to believe in one kindly action, or one virtuous thought!"Nicot bit his lip, and replied sullenly, "Experience is a great undeceiver.Humph! What service can I do thee with regard to the Italian?""I have been accessory to her arrival in this city of snares and pitfalls.I cannot leave her alone amidst dangers from which neither innocence nor obscurity is a safeguard.In your blessed Republic, a good and unsuspected citizen, who casts a desire on any woman, maid or wife, has but to say, 'Be mine, or I denounce you!' In a word, Viola must share our flight.""What so easy? I see your passports provide for her.""What so easy? What so difficult? This Fillide--would that Ihad never seen her!--would that I had never enslaved my soul to my senses! The love of an uneducated, violent, unprincipled woman, opens with a heaven, to merge in a hell! She is jealous as all the Furies; she will not hear of a female companion; and when once she sees the beauty of Viola!--I tremble to think of it.She is capable of any excess in the storm of her passions.""Aha, I know what such women are! My wife, Beatrice Sacchini, whom I took from Naples, when I failed with this very Viola, divorced me when my money failed, and, as the mistress of a judge, passes me in her carriage while I crawl through the streets.Plague on her!--but patience, patience! such is the lot of virtue.Would I were Robespierre for a day!""Cease these tirades!" exclaimed Glyndon, impatiently; "and to the point.What would you advise?""Leave your Fillide behind."
"Leave her to her own ignorance; leave her unprotected even by the mind; leave her in the Saturnalia of Rape and Murder? No! Ihave sinned against her once.But come what may, I will not so basely desert one who, with all her errors, trusted her fate to my love.""You deserted her at Marseilles."
"True; but I left her in safety, and I did not then believe her love to be so deep and faithful.I left her gold, and I imagined she would be easily consoled; but since THEN WE HAVE KNOWN DANGERTOGETHER! And now to leave her alone to that danger which she would never have incurred but for devotion to me!--no, that is impossible.A project occurs to me.Canst thou not say that thou hast a sister, a relative, or a benefactress, whom thou wouldst save? Can we not--till we have left France--make Fillide believe that Viola is one in whom THOU only art interested; and whom, for thy sake only, I permit to share in our escape?""Ha, well thought of!--certainly!"
"I will then appear to yield to Fillide's wishes, and resign the project, which she so resents, of saving the innocent object of her frantic jealousy.You, meanwhile, shall yourself entreat Fillide to intercede with me to extend the means of escape to--""To a lady (she knows I have no sister) who has aided me in my distress.Yes, I will manage all, never fear.One word more,--what has become of that Zanoni?"
"Talk not of him,--I know not."
"Does he love this girl still?"
"It would seem so.She is his wife, the mother of his infant, who is with her.""Wife!--mother! He loves her.Aha! And why--""No questions now.I will go and prepare Viola for the flight;you, meanwhile, return to Fillide."
"But the address of the Neapolitan? It is necessary I should know, lest Fillide inquire.""Rue M-- T--, No.27.Adieu."
Glyndon seized his hat and hastened from the house.
Nicot, left alone, seemed for a few moments buried in thought.
