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Believe that I would not here ask anything which your own mother would disapprove if she overlooked disparities of station. Humble as our home is, slander never passed its threshold." "Ah, Madame, I and the Signora Venosta, whom in our Italian tongue I call mother, can but feel honoured and grateful whenever it pleases you to receive visits from us."
It is not so, except on state occasions, at Paris. Difficult there to retire into solitude with your next neighbour. The guests collected by Duplessis completed with himself the number of the Sacred Nine the host, Valerie, Rochebriant, Graham, Isaura, Signora Venosta, La Duchesse de Tarascon, the wealthy and high-born Imperialist, Prince , and last and least, one who shall be nameless.
"Bon Dieu! that horrid fat man has deserted Signora Venosta, looking for his own cloak, I dare say; selfish monster! Go and hand her to her carriage; quick, it is announced!" Graham, thus ordered, hastened to offer his arm to the she-mountebank. Somehow she had acquired dignity in his eyes, and he did not feel the least ashamed of being in contact with the scarlet jacket.
This was not a request that Isaura could refuse, though she was embarrassed and troubled by the surmise of Madame Rameau's object in asking it; accordingly she led her visitor into the adjoining room, and making an apologetic sign to the Venosta, closed the door.
It is true that Isaura's fortune placed in the hands of the absent Louvier, and invested in the new street that was to have been, brought no return. It was true that in that street the Venosta, dreaming of cent. per cent., had invested all her savings.
The Venosta ran on in praise of Paris and the Parisians; of Louvier and his soiree and the pistachio ice; of the Americans, and a certain creme de maraschino which she hoped the Signor Inglese had not failed to taste, the creme de maraschino led her thoughts back to Italy. Then she grew mournful. How she missed the native beau ciel!
"The ladies attached to the ambulance of which she is so tender and zealous a sister incur no risk. There are always brave men related to the sick and wounded who see to the safe return of the women. My poor Raoul visits that ambulance daily. His kinsman, M. de Rochebriant, is there among the wounded." "Not seriously hurt, I hope," said the Venosta; "not disfigured?
Fox!" murmured Frederic, as the three men went slowly down through the darkening streets the roar of the Prussian guns heard afar, while distinct and near rang the laugh of the idlers round the Punch without a dog. She and the Venosta had hitherto escaped the extreme destitution to which many richer persons had been reduced.
Here a heavy thunderstorm broke and we sheltered in the Headquarters of an Italian Field Artillery Brigade, likewise blasted out of the mountain side. I returned with Venosta. I asked him to show me the famous Bersagliere trot, and by way of illustration we doubled along the road for about half a mile.
Madame Rameau swept her hand over her eyes, glanced round the room, and noticing the Venosta in dressing-robe and slippers, staring with those Italian eyes, in seeming so quietly innocent, in reality so searchingly shrewd, she whispered pleadingly, "May I speak to you a few minutes alone?"
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