"
"That means that, to a certain degree, you are jealous, little one.
Do you think I should be uneasy if you were called on to travel
under the escort, for example, of our friend the Conte Leandro?"
"The Conte Leandro!" cried Paolina, laughing, "I am sure you ought
to be uneasy at the bare thought of such a thing, for you know how
terrible it would be to me. But is it quite the same thing, amico
mio? La Lalli is indisputably a very beautiful woman; and the Conte
Leandro is--the Conte Leandro. But it is not that she is beautiful.
I don't know what it is. There is something about her--ecco, I
should not the least mind now your travelling to the world's end, or
being occupied in any other way, with the Contessa Violante."
"She is not a beautiful woman, certainly."
"She is, at all events, fifty times more pleasing-looking, as well
as more attractive in every way, than the Conte Leandro. But that is
not what makes the difference. I take it, the difference is, that
one feels that the Contessa Violante is good, and that nobody would
get anything but good from her. I have got quite to love her
myself."
"And yet you see, Paolina mia, somehow or other it came to pass that
I could not love her, when I was bid to do so; and, in the place of
doing that, I went and loved somebody else instead. How is that to
be accounted for, eh?"
"I am sure that is more than I can guess, Ludovico.
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