Since then, I have had but one thought, and it is one which would
avail to gild all others, let them be what they might, with its
brightness. Is the same thought as sweet a source of happiness to
you, my promised husband?"
"That's clear enough, I hope," thought Gigia, outside the door, to
herself. "Che! If nothing had been said the other day, that would be
enough; and I think Quinto might trust nostra bambina to manage her
own affairs. She knows what she is about, the dear child: not but
that it is a good plan to be able to remind a gentleman in case he
should forget. Gentlemen will forget such things sometimes."
"You cannot doubt my love," said the Marchese, in reply to her
appeal.
Those five words may possibly, in the course of the world's history,
have occurred before in the same combination. But the phrase served
the occasion as well as if it had been entirely new and original.
"Indeed, I do not, Lamberto; nor will you again, I trust, ever doubt
mine as you seemed to do last night. Ah, Lamberto! you do not know
how bitterly I wept over the remembrance of those cruel words when I
had parted from you. You will never, never say such again. Tell me
you never will."
"Doubts and fears, my Bianca, are the inevitable companions of such
a love as mine," said the Marchese, with a somewhat sickly smile;
"but the few words you said last night sufficed to dissipate them,
as I assured you.
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