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Camilla laughed at her maid's alphabet, and perceived her to be more
experienced in love affairs than she said, which she admitted, confessing
to Camilla that she had love passages with a young man of good birth of
the same city. Camilla was uneasy at this, dreading lest it might prove
the means of endangering her honour, and asked whether her intrigue had
gone beyond words, and she with little shame and much effrontery said it
had; for certain it is that ladies' imprudences make servants shameless,
who, when they see their mistresses make a false step, think nothing of
going astray themselves, or of its being known. All that Camilla could do
was to entreat Leonela to say nothing about her doings to him whom she
called her lover, and to conduct her own affairs secretly lest they
should come to the knowledge of Anselmo or of Lothario. Leonela said she
would, but kept her word in such a way that she confirmed Camilla's
apprehension of losing her reputation through her means; for this
abandoned and bold Leonela, as soon as she perceived that her mistress's
demeanour was not what it was wont to be, had the audacity to introduce
her lover into the house, confident that even if her mistress saw him she