But he blushed when Balli turned on him his calm scrutinizing gaze, and not knowing how else to hide his passion he began to make fun of Angiolina, confiding to Balli certain observations which he was engaged in making upon her, but which did not in reality in the least diminish his tender feeling towards her. He would laugh heartily at his own witticisms, but Balli, who knew him well enough to detect a false ring in his words, let him laugh alone.

She used to try and talk the Tuscan dialect, but in such an affected manner that her accent was more English than Tuscan. “Sooner or later,” said Emilio, “I must cure her of that habit; it is beginning to irritate me.” She had a way of carrying her head continually bent towards her left shoulder. “A sign of vanity, according to Gall,” Emilio remarked, and with the gravity of a man of science engaged on an experiment, he added: “Who knows whether Gall’s observations were not much less inaccurate than is generally supposed?” She was greedy, he said, she liked plenty to eat and drink, and she must feed well; he pitied anyone who was saddled with her! In this he was lying shamelessly, for he liked just as much to see her eat as to hear her laugh. He made a point of mocking at all the little weaknesses which he specially liked. He had been much moved one day when, in talking about some woman who was very ugly and very rich, Angiolina had come out with the exclamation: “Rich! Then she is not ugly!” She set so much store by beauty, yet she was ready to put it beneath the feet of that other power. “A vulgar woman!” Now he could afford to laugh with Balli.

Gradually, between his way of talking to Balli and his way of talking to Angiolina, Brentani had come to build up two distinct individuals who lived quietly side by side, and whom he never made any effort to reconcile. At bottom he did not really lie either to Balli or to Angiolina. He could never confess to himself that he loved talking for its own sake, and he felt as safe as the ostrich who thinks he can elude the hunter merely by not looking at him. But when he was alone with Angiolina he gave himself entirely up to his own feeling for her. Why should he try to resist the strong and joyful impulse of his love? What danger could there be to him in loving her? What reason to stem his love? For it was not only desire he felt for her, but love. He almost felt within him the stirrings of paternal love, when he thought how weak, how unprotected she was, like some young tender animal. Her very lack of intelligence was but one weakness the more, and constituted one more claim on his tenderness and protection.

He had met her at Campo Marzio just as she, vexed at not finding him already there waiting for her, was on the point of going away. It was the first time he had ever kept her waiting, but he was able to prove to her, watch in hand, that he was really not at all late. When her anger had calmed down she confessed that she had been more than usually in a hurry to see him that evening, so that she had come rather early herself. Such strange things had happened to her, which she wanted to tell him all about at once. She leaned affectionately on his arm. “I have cried ever so much today,” and she wiped away some tears, which in the darkness he was unable to see. She refused to tell him anything till they had reached the terrace, and they climbed arm in arm up the long, dark avenue leading to it. He was in no hurry to arrive. The news she had to tell him could not be very bad, since it had made Angiolina more affectionate than usual. He stopped several times to snatch a kiss from her.

When they reached the top he made her sit down on the low wall, rested one arm lightly on her knee and sheltered her with his own umbrella from the fine, penetrating rain which had not stopping falling for the last few hours.

“I am engaged,” she said, in a voice into which she attempted to put a touch of sentimentality, which was very soon banished by a strong impulse to burst out laughing.

“Engaged!” Emilio repeated the word. At first he was so incredulous that he at once began to try and discover her reason for telling him such a lie. He peered into her face, and in spite of the darkness he thought he could detect in her expression the sentimentality which had at once disappeared from her voice. It must be true then. Besides, what reason could she have had for telling him a lie? So they had at last found the third person they stood in need of!

“Will you be happy now?” she asked him in a cajoling voice.

She was far indeed from suspecting what was taking place in his mind, and he was ashamed to speak the words which his lips were burning to utter. But by no possibility could he have feigned the joy she seemed to expect from him. His anguish was so acute that he remained there petrified, till he heard her reminding him that he had never minded before hearing her talk about that plan of theirs. But so long as it had been only a plan Angiolina’s lips had seemed to turn it into a caress. He, too, had toyed with the idea, had dreamed of its becoming a reality and of all the happiness that would ensue from it.