so
impetuous--so jealous! I have told you over and over again that I love
you! Do you not remember that night when Fabio sat out on the balcony
reading his Plato, poor fellow!"--here she laughed musically--"and we
were trying over some songs in the drawing--room--did I not say then
that I loved you best of any one in the world? You know I did! You
ought to be satisfied!"

Guido smiled, and stroked her shining golden curls.

"I AM satisfied," he said, without any trace of his former heated
impatience--"perfectly satisfied. But do not expect to find love
without jealousy. Fabio was never jealous--I know--he trusted you too
implicitly--he was nothing of a lover, believe me! He thought more of
himself than of you. A man who will go away for days at a time on
solitary yachting and rambling excursions, leaving his wife to her own
devices--a man who reads Plato in preference to looking after HER,
decides his own fate, and deserves to be ranked with those so-called
wise but most ignorant philosophers to whom Woman has always remained
an unguessed riddle. As for me--I am jealous of the ground you tread
upon--of the air that touches you--I was jealous of Fabio while he
lived--and--by heaven!"--his eyes darkened with a somber wrath--"if any
other man dared now to dispute your love with me I would not rest till
his body had served my sword as a sheath!"

Nina raised her head from his breast with an air of petulant weariness.

"Again!" she murmured, reproachfully, "you are going to be angry AGAIN!"

He kissed her.

"Not I, sweet one! I will be as gentle as you wish, so long as you love
me and only me. Come--this avenue is damp and chilly for you--shall we
go in?"

My wife--nay, I should say OUR wife, as we had both shared her
impartial favors--assented. With arms interlaced and walking slowly,
they began to retrace their steps toward the house. Once they paused.

"Do you hear the nightingales?" asked Guido.

Hear them! Who could not hear them? A shower of melody rained from the
trees on every side--the pure, sweet, passionate tones pierced the ear
like the repeated chime of little golden bells--the beautiful, the
tender, the God-inspired birds sung their love-stories simply and with
perfect rapture--love-stories untainted by hypocrisy--unsullied by
crime--different, ah! so very different from the love-stones of selfish
humanity! The exquisite poetic idyl of a bird's life and love--is it
not a thing to put us inferior crea