erwards
with his lawn handkerchief, for he was skilled in such matters. Ortensia
smiled faintly, without opening her eyes; but he, with the strangest
expression in the world, drew in his lips till his mouth almost
disappeared; and he fixed his round eyes on the shapely arm he was
dressing, and touched it with a sort of wonder. For there was a secret
side of his character which even his friend Gambardella did not know,
any more than Trombin knew his companion's own love-story.

When Trombin said that he was a susceptible creature, full of sentiment,
he was telling the truth, though his friend had never believed it. He
loved all women in general, and seemed able to love a number of them in
particular in close succession. Gambardella saw this, and exercised his
wit upon the weakness; but what he never saw and could not guess was
that his fellow-cut-throat was as shy and timid as a schoolboy in the
presence of his sweetheart for the time being, whether she were of low
degree or of the burgher class, above which Trombin had never aspired
till he had seen Ortensia. The reckless Bravo, the perpetrator of a
score of atrocious crimes, the absolutely intrepid swordsman, would
blush like a girl, and stand speechless and confused when he was alone
for the first time with a pretty girl or a buxom dame whose mere
side-glance made the blood tingle in his neck. Moreover, many women know
that there are plenty of such men in the world; and I dare say that more
than one man may read these lines who has faced the extremest danger
without a quickened pulse, but has collapsed like a scared child before
a girl of eighteen or a cool-handed widow of eight-and-twenty. Oddly
enough, those are not the men whom women love least, explain it how you
will.

So Trombin, who had talked of carrying off Ortensia with even more
assurance than Don Alberto himself, and had just found her senseless on
the floor after he had put her assailant to flight, could no more have
had the boldness to kiss the white arm he was dressing so tenderly and
skilfully than young Altieri had found courage to fight him when he had
suddenly appeared through the window, rapier in hand and glaring like a
panther.

Meanwhile Ortensia came quite to herself, looked at him quietly, and
thanked him.

'Where is he gone?' she asked, for she had not realised what he had said
when he had first answered her.

As he met her eyes Trombin's white forehead blushed, and he stepped
back, ta