She has paid for her fault a
heavier penalty than it deserved, any way. You are disposed to
think, then, that she would have given up the prize of all her
scheming--this marriage, which was to have given her everything in
the world that she could desire, and more than she could have ever
dreamed of attaining; she would have voluntarily relinquished all
this, you think, for your sake?"
"I'll tell you what it is, Manutoli. A man can never appreciate,--
can never fathom, the depth of woman's generosity till he has tried
it."
"But, caro mio,--after all I don't want to be hard upon her, poor
soul, God knows!--but to expect generosity on such a point from such
a woman--"
"You may say what you will, Manutoli, I know what she was, poor
girl, as well as you do--better, a great deal; for, I tell you, that
there was a real generosity in her nature. Look here," continued
Ludovico; after a pause of a minute or two, "I would not say it to
anybody else than you, or to you either, except under circumstances
that make one wish to state the whole truth exactly as it was. It
seems so coxcomblike,--so like what our friend Leandro would say;
but I may say it to you. The fact is, I have a kind of idea that
that poor Bianca was inclined to like me. She cried when I told her-
-"
"Aha, j'y suis! Now I begin to be able to fathom the depth of a
woman's generosity.
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