And here he thought it his duty to lie, and replied, “I don’t think so.”

The party of four was to meet the following evening at the Giardino Pubblico. Emilio and Angiolina were the first to arrive. It was not very pleasant waiting out in the open, for though it was not actually raining the ground was damp on account of the sirocco. Angiolina tried to conceal her impatience under an appearance of ill-humor, but she did not succeed in deceiving Emilio, who was seized with an intense desire to win back this woman whom he felt he had already lost. The result was that he bored her; he felt it himself and she took care to let him feel it even more. Pressing her arm tightly in his own he asked her: “Do you love me at least as much as you did last night?” “Yes,” she replied sharply, “but it isn’t the sort of thing one keeps on repeating every moment.”

Balli appeared at last, coming from the direction of the Aqueduct, arm in arm with a woman as tall as himself. “What a beanstalk!” said Angiolina, at once giving expression to the only judgment it was possible to form of her at that distance.

When they had come nearer, Balli introduced them: “Margherita! Ange!” He tried to get a view of Angiolina in the dark and brought his face so near to hers that by putting out his lips he could have kissed her. “Are you really Ange?” Nothing would satisfy him but he must strike a match and light up her rosy face, which with the utmost solemnity lent itself to the operation. Lit up thus in the darkness it seemed to shine with an adorable brilliance: the small yellow flame pierced her pale eyes like the clear waters of a pool and they shone back at him with their sweet, wild, bewitching luster. Quite unperturbed, Balli lit up in its turn Margherita’s face, a pale face, pure in outline, with great blue vivacious eyes which at once riveted the attention, an aquiline nose and masses of chestnut hair piled up on her little head. What struck one most in her face was the contradiction between her bold challenging eyes and the suffering, madonna-like air of her finely chiseled features. She took advantage of the tiny flame for studying Emilio rather than for displaying her own charms: then, as the match was still not quite burnt out she blew it out.

“Now you all know one another; and that fellow there,” said Balli, pointing to Emilio, “you will soon have an opportunity of seeing in the full lamplight.”

He led the way with Margherita who had already put her arm through his. Margherita was too tall and thin for her figure to be really good; but they had both been struck by the mixture of liveliness and suffering in the expression of her face. She walked insecurely, and took very small steps in proportion to her size. She was wearing a short jacket of a flaming red color, which lost all its dashing character on her modest unassertive-looking back, with its slight stoop; it had rather the air of a military uniform which a boy was dressing-up in, whereas the dullest color which Angiolina wore took on a lively hue. “What a pity!” whispered Angiolina, genuinely distressed. “Such a lovely head stuck up on a maypole like that.”

Emilio felt a desire to say something. He caught up Balli and said to him: “I think your young lady’s eyes are so lovely that I should like to know what you think of mine.”

“Her eyes aren’t bad,” declared Balli, “but the modeling of her nose is not perfect; the line of the lower part is very sketchy; it needs a little retouching.”

“Really?” exclaimed Angiolina, much upset.

“I may be mistaken, of course,” said Balli, in the most serious voice. “I shall be able to see for certain in a moment, when we get some more light.”

When Angiolina had got far enough away from her terrible critic, she said spitefully: “As if that great gawk of his was perfect!”

When they reached the “Mondo Nuovo,” they went into a long room which was timbered at one end and had at the other a glass door opening on to a large open-air café. The waiter, who at once rushed to meet them, was quite young, and very much a peasant, judging by his dress and manners. He climbed on a stool and lit two gas-jets, which were a very insufficient illumination for so big a room; he was in no hurry to come down, but stayed up there rubbing his sleepy eyes till Stefano ran to pull him down, shouting out that he could not allow anyone to fall asleep so high above the ground. The lad leaned on the sculptor’s shoulder and allowed himself to be lifted down, then ran off wide awake and in the best of humors.

Margherita had a sore foot and she sat down at once. Balli busied himself about her, full of solicitude, and told her not to stand on ceremony, but to take off her boot. But she refused, saying: “It always hurts me more or less, and this evening I hardly feel it at all.”

How different that woman was from Angiolina! Chaste and affectionate by nature, her declarations of love were made silently and almost imperceptibly, while Angiolina, when she wished to signify that her sensibility was aroused, made a thousand preparatory moves like an engine which needs a long time to get under way.

But Balli was not satisfied. He had said that she was to take off her boot and he insisted on being obeyed, till at last she declared that she was perfectly ready to take off both her boots if he told her to, but that it would not do the slightest good, for the boots had nothing whatever to do with her pain. All through the evening he made a point of compelling her submission from time to time, because he wanted to illustrate his method of dealing with women. Margherita lent herself admirably to the part; she laughed at him a good deal, but she obeyed. Her manner of talking seemed to show that she was capable of forming her own judgment upon things, and this made her submissive attitude all the more salutary as an example.

At first she tried to get into conversation with Angiolina, who by standing on tiptoe was trying to get a view of herself in a distant mirror, in order to put her curls in order. She told her about the pains she had in her chest and legs; she couldn’t remember the time when she had not suffered from some pain or other. Still intent on her image in the mirror, Angiolina commented, “Really? Poor thing!” then added with extreme simplicity: “I am always quite well.” Emilio, who knew her so well, could hardly help smiling, for he realized the complete indifference to Margherita’s maladies which was conveyed in her words, and the entire satisfaction she immediately felt in her own well-being.