“His love does not move you?”
“No.”
“His pity does not soften you?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t his pardon seem a sublime act to you? Is he not a hero?”
“I am a miserable creature made of clay, and I do not understand sublimity.”
They were silent. The weather became warmer and slightly heavier, and the singing of the little birds in the trees grew weaker. Some of the roses had scattered their leaves on the ground.
“And with all this what are we going to do with Marco Fiore?” she broke in with irony.
“With Marco?”
“Yes, with him. What will he do when, according to you, I have returned to my husband? What will become of Marco?”
“He will be content to marry Vittoria Casalta. The girl has been waiting for him for three years.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, in a voice scarcely recognisable.
Without greeting or looking at him she turned her back, and went quickly round the corner of the portico.
Nor did Gianni Provana dare to follow her.
IV
Maria had searched for Marco Fiore for an hour in all the places she supposed he might be; at the great door of Palazzo Fiore, in the via Bocca di Leone, leaving him word scribbled in pencil on a small piece of paper; at the Hunt Club, which he sometimes looked into towards noon; at the fencing rooms in the via Muratte, where two or three times a week he used to undergo a long sword exercise.
Porters, butlers, servants had seen the beautiful and elegant lady, dressed in white, hidden behind a white veil, ask with insistence for the noble Marco Fiore and go away slowly, as if not convinced that he was not in one of those places. Towards noon, agitated and silent, consumed by her emotion, she entered the little villa at Santa Maria Maggiore, and there, at the threshold, was Marco, who had just arrived, with a slightly languid smile on his lips and the habitual softness in his eyes.
“Ah, Marco, Marco, I have looked for you everywhere,” she stammered in confusion, taking him by the hand.
“What is the matter?” he asked, a little surprised, scrutinising her face.
“Come, Marco; come.”
Still leading him by the hand she made him cross the ante-room, the drawing-room, the little drawing-room, and the study, and did not stop till she was with him in the bedroom with its closed green shutters, whence entered the perfumes from a very tiny conservatory. Once within, she closed the door with a tired gesture. They were alone. She fixed him with her eyes right into his, placing her two hands on his shoulders, dominating him with her height. And to him never had her face seemed so beautiful and so ardent.
“Do you love me, Marco?”
“I love you,” he said with tender sweetness.
“You mustn’t say it so. Better, better. Do you love me?”
“I love you,” he replied, disturbed.
“As once upon a time, you must say, as once upon a time.”
“I love you, Maria,” he replied, still more disturbed.
“Do you love me as at first? Reply without hesitating, without thinking—as at first?”
Regarding him, scorching him with her glance, with the pressure of her white and firm hands on his shoulders, she subjugated him.
Already the youthful blood of Marco Fiore coursed in his veins, and the giddiness of passion, which for some time had not overcome his soul, mastered him.
“As at first,” he murmured, in a subdued voice.
“It is true you don’t want to lose me. Say it! Say it!”
“I would prefer to lose my soul.”
“You have never thought of leaving me?”
“Never.”
“Am I always your lady?”
“My lady, you, and you only.”
“Oh, Marco!” she sighed, letting her face fall on his breast, yielding to an emotion which was too violent.
He had become very pale. His eyebrows were knotted in sad thought. He took her face, covered with tears, and wiped it with his handkerchief, and asked her with a voice, where already suspicion was pressing, and where jealousy was hissing insidiously—
“What is this, Maria? Tell me all.”
“Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” she said desperately.
“Tell me all at once,” he rejoined in angry impatience.
“No, no, Marco, it is nothing. I am mad this morning.”
“That is impossible. You were calm and serene yesterday evening. There is something. There is somebody. Whom have you seen this morning?”
The question was so precise and abrupt that the woman of truth hesitated, and dared no longer be silent.
“I have seen Gianni Provana.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, twisting his moustaches; “did you see him here?”
“No, elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? In the street?”
“Almost.”
“You met him by accident?”
“Not by accident.”
“Maria, Maria!” he cried; “why have you done this?”
“I have erred; pardon me, Marco.”
She humbled herself, taking his hands to kiss them in an act of profound contrition.
But releasing himself, he made two or three turns of the room, then returned to her.
“And what has that reptile said to you? Repeat to me what that horrid man said to you.”
“Oh, he is so horrid as to make one shudder.”
“Repeat it; repeat it at once, Maria.”
“How am I to tell them? They are infamous things.”
“Against me?”
“Against us.”
“But speak, at least speak! Do you wish to make me die of anger and impatience?”
“No, Marco. I will tell you all. Come, sit beside me, be tranquil. I don’t like to see you so. You must be calm, my love, so that I may tell you all; you must be sweet and loving, and not so disturbed and wicked.”
“Maria, I am waiting,” he said, almost without listening to her, folding his arms.
“Listen; it is true I ought not to have gone to the meeting with Gianni Provana. I have erred greatly, but a secret terror has been too much for me; I wished to know what he had to tell me. Could it not be perhaps a secret threat for me, for you?”
“I fear nothing, Maria.”
“I, too, nothing; but I went to know. That man is so perverse, and he is always seeing my husband.”
“Then he came for Emilio Guasco?” he exclaimed, rising.
“Yes,”