as near her nose as the movement of the chair would permit, and the major-domo offering her a petit verre of brandy on the other.
There are persons who can look almost any character they find themselves committed to, so impressionable is their nature; and the duchess really looked ill. She was so pale that her sons' tutor, who was also chaplain, meeting the procession at the door, was about to give her final absolution, when Mariù unceremoniously pulled his arm down.
"Ma, che, Don Giovanni!" she whispered, "it's nothing but 'sterici!"
A few alternations of weeping and laughing brought about the desired effect,—headache, a rapid pulse, and a flushed face,—"every premonitory sign of a fever," Dr. Marionelli assured the duke, when called to see him in the smoking-room after dinner.
D'Rubiera was shocked and distressed. He had thought that nothing was really the matter; and the doctor seemed in earnest.
"Who knows but that was what ailed her this afternoon?" he thought. "Maybe she didn't know what she was saying,—poor Lauretta! I was too rough."
He had Rosina called to him, made the most minute inquiries regarding his wife's state, and received the most discouraging replies.
"Tell her I am sorry I did not know that she was unwell this afternoon," he said; "and say that I will be very quiet if she will allow me to see her."
Rosina went up to her mistress with this message and delivered it faithfully. "Do see him now, duchessa," she begged. "He feels so bad. He is sure to ask your pardon."
"I will not see him!" the lady cried. "Tell him that he is on no account to come near me. And don't bring me another word from him."
Rosina returned to the duke, and this is the way she delivered her mistress's reply:
"Madama thanks you tanto, tanto! for your kindness, and is so sorry that she cannot see you to-night. Her head aches so badly that it hurts her to talk or to hear any one talk. But she says that you must not be anxious, as she hopes to be better in the morning. And she told me to say felicissima sera e buon riposo al signor duca."
All this, of course, addressed to the third person and accompanied by the most deprecating of gestures and looks.
"Oh, I wouldn't disturb her for the world!" said D'Rubiera, with increasing distress. "But couldn't I just look at her a moment? I could step in and kiss her hand and come directly out again."
Greatly perplexed by his persistence, Rosina went slowly up-stairs once more, paused a moment at the door of her mistress's chamber, then went down again.
"The signora duchessa is sleeping," she declared. "But she sleeps so lightly that the least touch would waken her. She is very nervous, and jumps at every sound. The doctor says that she must on no account be waked from sleep or made to jump. If she were disturbed, moreover, the medicine she has taken would fail to have its proper effect." (The medicine had been thrown out of the window.) Besides, by an unlucky "combinazione," the signora duchessa's hands were both under the sheet, and when she, Rosina, had tried "pian piano" to uncover one of them, in order that the signor duca might have the pleasure of saluting it, madama had given such a start!
The gentleman perceived that his wife had refused to see him, and withdrew his request. But he felt very unhappy and very much ashamed of himself. He had made a rough, stinging speech to a sick woman, and now she was afraid to see him. Perhaps she thought he had some new insult to offer her, and shrank from further harm. What if she should die with the thought piercing her heart like a thorn that he had twitted her with having offered herself to him?
He took a cigar and went out into the grounds, smoking and walking to and fro opposite his wife's window. Then, recollecting that smoke might do
