He, too, had stood still and was looking after them. “He has stopped to look at me, hasn’t he?” she asked, with a gay smile.

“Why does it give you any pleasure?” he inquired sadly. She obviously could not understand what he meant. Then she cunningly tried to make him believe that she did it on purpose to make him jealous, and finally, to pacify him, shamelessly, before all the world, she puckered her lips into what was evidently intended to be a kiss. No, she was incapable of deceit. The woman he loved, named Ange, was his own invention, he had created her by an effort of his own will: Angiolina had had no part in this creation, she had even, by the resistance she offered, prevented its completion. The dream vanished in the light of day.

“There is too much light,” he murmured, dazzled by it. “Let us walk in the shade.”

She looked at him curiously, seeing his face so painfully contorted. “Does the sun hurt your eyes? Fancy that! But I remember hearing it said that there are some people who cannot bear it.” It was she who was wrong to love the sun.

At the moment of parting, he said: “Supposing Volpini were to hear about us walking together all through the town?”

“Who would be likely to tell him?” she answered with the utmost composure. “I should say you were a brother or a cousin of the Deluigis. He doesn’t know anybody in Trieste, so it is easy to make him believe whatever one wants.”

When he had left her, he felt the need of analyzing his own impressions once more, and walked on alone without noticing where he was going. A sudden flash of energy quickened and intensified his thoughts. He set himself a problem which he solved immediately. The best thing he could do would be to leave her at once and never see her again. He could no longer deceive himself as to the nature of his own feelings. The pain he had just experienced, the shame he had felt on her account and on his own, revealed it to him only too clearly.

He sought out Stefano Balli, intending to make him a promise which he would be obliged to keep, so that there could be no question of going back on his resolution. But the very sight of his friend was enough to make him abandon it. Why could not he be like Stefano and just amuse himself with women? It came over him only too vividly what his life would be like without love. On one side would be Balli always trying to lead him on, on the other Amalia, with her perpetual gloom; and that would be all. He felt no less energy than he had felt only a short while ago; but now he wanted to live, to live and enjoy even if he had to suffer for it. He would display his energy in the way he treated Angiolina, not by a cowardly flight from her.

The sculptor welcomed him with a coarse oath. “Are you still alive? I warn you that if you have come to ask a favor of me, as I rather gather from your contrite face, it is labor lost, and you will simply be wasting your breath. Rotter!”

He went on shouting comic threats into his ear, but Emilio no longer felt any doubt about the line he must take. His friend, by implying that he needed his help, had incidentally given him a good piece of advice. No one, after all, could be so useful to him as Balli in this emergency. “Please listen to me,” he said. “I want to ask your advice.”

The other burst out laughing. “Of course, it’s about Angiolina, isn’t it? I refuse to hear anything about her. She has already come between us, and there let her stay; I won’t be plagued by her anymore.”

Even if Balli had been twice as savage, he would still not have been able to rid himself of Emilio, once he had resolved to ask his advice. For in that, Emilio felt, lay his salvation.