She was now singing less vivaciously and pausing on a note or two, prolonging it with such feeling that Alfonso, who had not understood the words, began to find this song sad.

Those sweet notes showed him why he felt so miserable. They made him long to hear a friendly word from the superb creature with such a fine voice and realize that so far he had not had one. She had greeted him brusquely, interrupted ruthlessly when he had begun to speak, and not addressed a word to him. Why? She had never seen him before. It must all be contempt for an inferior, someone badly dressed; now he knew how badly dressed he was compared with Macario.

When Annetta stopped, Macario clapped with enthusiasm and Alfonso joined the applause. He rather overdid it, and soon realized this, but did not want them to know he was offended. The pretence made him suffer greatly and he realized that he had definitely lost all the small store of ease which he had brought with him. Macario in his enthusiasm held for a long time a hand which Annetta left in his.

“The Signorina speaks French very well!” said Alfonso as if asking a question. No one bothered to reply, and he was silent, feeling himself a stupid bore.

Annetta served tea, helped by a maid. She insisted on Macario also taking something else, and told the maid to carry a cup over to Alfonso, whose eyes were agleam with anger. He began to feel he should react; what worried him most was a fear that Macario, seeing him put up so humbly with such impertinence, would despise him. He would have given his eye tooth to hit on a suitably caustic phrase.

“I never take tea,” he said then in courteous tones as if asking to be excused, nettled at finding no other phrase and at being unable to give the words any other intonation.

“Would you care for some brandy?” asked Annetta, without looking at him.

“No,” was all he said, but an involuntary bow made even this monosyllable sound courteous.

Macario now began addressing himself more and more to Alfonso, who thought that he might have noticed Annetta’s odd behaviour and wanted to make up for it by his own attentions. Alfonso answered Macario more calmly but still in monosyllables.

“D’you play an instrument?”

“No.”

Macario congratulated him; there was nothing worse than a dilettante strummer.

“Singing, as my cousin does, is all right. One can’t understand all her words, but she has quite a pleasant voice. It pleases even me: my enthusiasm a short time ago was genuine.”

Annetta thanked him ironically, but it was obvious that she was more offended by the reproof than she wished to appear. This was also realized by Alfonso with deep satisfaction. Now she too was searching, without finding, for an answer to wound with or defend herself by.

Her tone had been jesting for some time, but as Macario continued to pay her compliments on her beauty and grace but did not withdraw what he had said, eventually she showed her annoyance openly. Looking serious and even a little pale she cried: “Tell me definitely where I went wrong? As criticism,” she was trying to be pungent, “joking’s not enough.”

Macario began laughing so heartily that Alfonso envied him.

“D’you set so much store by your reputation as a performer? Forgive my comment, I withdraw it!”

Alfonso was the first to get up. Francesca also rose to her feet and asked him to give her good wishes to Signora Carolina. Annetta remained seated, arguing with her cousin. But the latter now also decided to go and called to Alfonso: “If you wait a moment, I’ll come with you.”

Flattered, Alfonso waited.

Macario, still very gay, said to Annetta as he shook hands: “Another time, dear cousin, don’t doubt it, I’ll give my criticism in detail.”

Joking but haughty, Annetta replied: “I don’t care; if I need correction I’ll find a way to correct myself.”

She offered her hand to Alfonso too; their two hands touched, both inert, and fell. Seeing her so pale, Alfonso had a second’s alarm followed quickly by a sense of satisfaction at having found a way of showing indifference.

In the street the two men stopped.

“Are you going that way?” asked Macario, pointing towards the sea.

“No,” replied Alfonso, “towards the Corso, actually.”

“Do please give me the pleasure of your company for a little of the way.”

He buttoned his fur coat, while Alfonso thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat with a shiver. Without waiting for a reply, Macario moved slowly towards the seashore.

“Is this the first time you have seen my cousin?” On hearing Alfonso’s “yes”, he asked “And the last time too, eh?” with a laugh which in the dark supplemented his habitual expression of amusement.

Alfonso thought he showed great courage by replying frankly: “I hope so!”

“It’s not worth being put out by women’s whims; my cousin’s a silly!”

“I didn’t think so!” replied Alfonso with some emotion.

Obviously Macario wanted to diminish the bad impression produced in Alfonso by Annetta’s behaviour.

“D’you know why you were treated so coldly? One of my uncle’s clerks recently had begun to pay court to Annetta almost as soon as he was introduced. Apparently he even boasted of a correspondence between them. My uncle heard of it and had a good laugh at his daughter for some time. That clerk was a dark little man with short curly hair, and no fool. Annetta always acts by general maxims, and will have nothing more to do with her father’s employees.”

They had reached the shore. The sea was rough, and there was the sound of waves crashing on the quay. In the darkness of the moonlit night, beyond buildings lined along the shore, the sea seemed a vast black emptiness. Only a revolving ray from the lighthouse was reflected in the water and lit its surface.

Macario drew Alfonso off to the right towards the railway station.

“I wish I hadn’t been invited.