Don Giuseppe first gently urged her
not to abandon herself to this dream, and then avowed to her in all
sincerity that no tidings of Piero had reached him since the day of his
disappearance.
Fearing other questions, and unwilling any longer to expose her wound
to the touch of unskilled fingers, Jeanne sought to change the subject.
"Tell me about your monk," she said. But just at that moment Carlino's
voice was heard in the hall.
"Not now," replied Noemi. "To-night."
Carlino came in, a white silk muffler round his neck, grumbling at the
Lac d'Armour, which he pronounced a huge fraud, which only filled the
air with odious, poisonous, little creatures. "To be sure." said he,
"love itself is no better." Noemi would not allow him to talk of love.
Why should he discuss a subject which he did not understand? Carlino
thanked her. He had been on the point of falling in love with her; had
greatly feared such a catastrophe. Her words, coming as they did so soon
after her appearance in a certain offensive hat, with an ungraceful
feather, and after some rather bourgeois expressions of admiration for
that poor, tiresome devil Mendelssohn, had saved him _a jamais.
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