CHAPTER XIV.
AT THE MAESTRO'S DOOR The house of the Maestro Rocco Ricci turned off the Borgo della Stella.
Carlo Ammiani conducted Vittoria to the maestro's door.

They conversed very little on the way.
'You are a good swordsman ?' she asked him abruptly.
'I have as much skill as belongs to a perfect intimacy with the weapon,' he answered.
'Your father was a soldier, Signor Carlo.' 'He was a General officer in what he believed to be the army of Italy.
We used to fence together every day for two hours.' 'I love the fathers who do that,' said Vittoria.
After such speaking Ammiani was not capable of the attempt to preach peace and safety to her.

He postponed it to the next minute and the next.
Vittoria's spirit was in one of those angry knots which are half of the intellect, half of the will, and are much under the domination of one or other of the passions in the ascendant.

She was resolved to go forward; she felt justified in going forward; but the divine afflatus of enthusiasm buoyed her no longer, and she required the support of all that accuracy of insight and that senseless stubbornness which there might be in her nature.

The feeling that it was she to whom it was given to lift the torch and plant the standard of Italy, had swept her as through the strings of a harp.