"You are very hard upon marriage," he said quietly. "Have you tried it?"
"Not yet. I will wait as long as possible, before I do. It is not every
one who has your luck."
"There was something more than luck in my marriage. We loved each other,
it is true, but there were difficulties--you have no idea what
difficulties there were. But Faustina was brave and I caught a little
courage from her. Do you know that when the Serristori barracks were
blown up she ran out alone to find me merely because she thought I might
have been killed? I found her in the ruins, praying for me. It was
sublime."
"I have heard that. She was very brave--"
"And I a poor Zonave--and a poorer painter. Are there such women
nowadays? Bah! I have not known them. We used to meet at churches and
exchange two words while her maid was gone to get her a chair. Oh, the
good old time! And then the separations--the taking of Rome, when the
old Princess carried all the family off to England and stayed there
while we were fighting for poor France--and the coming back and the
months of waiting, and the notes dropped from her window at midnight and
the great quarrel with her family when we took advantage of the new law.
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