“I don’t think you ought to run any danger. The nature of the affair is sufficiently indicated by the sunshade slipping from her hand at such a very convenient moment, and by her immediately giving you an appointment.”

“That is true,” Emilio agreed, though he did not add that up to this moment he had paid so little attention to those two details that, now that Balli mentioned them, they struck him as two quite new facts. “Do you think, then, that what Sorniani says about her is true?” When listening to Sorniani’s revelations he had certainly not taken those two facts into account.

“You must introduce me to her,” said Balli cautiously. “Then I shall be able to judge better.”

Brentani could not keep his secret even from his sister. Amalia had never been pretty. Tall, thin and colorless—Balli used to say that she had been born gray—the only quality of youth that remained to her was her slender, white, exquisitely shaped hands to which she devoted infinite care and attention.

It was the first time he had ever spoken to her about a woman, and Amalia listened in surprise and with a sudden change of countenance to words which, as he spoke them, he felt to be innocent and above reproach, but which on his lips became fraught with passionate desire. He had in reality told her nothing, but she was already murmuring Balli’s warning: “Do be careful not to do anything foolish.”

But then she wanted him to tell her everything, and Emilio thought he might safely confide in her the wonderful happiness he had felt that first evening, though he instinctively hid from her the proposal he had made to Angiolina and all the hopes he had based on it. It did not occur to him that what he had told her was really the most dangerous part. She sat listening to him at supper, continuing all the while to supply his every need silently and attentively, so that he never needed to interrupt his story to ask for this or that. It was with just such an expression that she had read the several hundred novels ranged on the shelves of the old cupboard which served as a library; but the fascination which Emilio’s story exercised on her was, as she herself recognized with surprise, something quite different. She was no longer merely a passive listener, it was not the fate of some outside person which fascinated her, but her own fate which suddenly assumed for her a new and vivid interest. Love had entered the house and was there beside her, restlessly at work. A single breath had sufficed to dissipate the stagnant atmosphere in which she had lived blindly up to that moment and she was astonished, when she came to examine her own feelings, that being made as she was she could have been content to live like that, without being conscious of any desire to suffer or enjoy.

Brother and sister were embarking together on the same adventure.

2

DARK THOUGH it was he recognized Angiolina the moment he turned into the Campo Marzio. To recognize her he only needed by now to see her shadow moving forward with that smooth, unaccentuated gait peculiar to her, as if she were being securely and tenderly borne along. He hastened to meet her and at the sight of her brilliant coloring, so strangely vivid, so flawless in its perfection, he felt his heart leap for joy within him. She had come, and as she leaned on his arm he felt that she had given him the whole of herself.

He led her down towards the sea, away from the main road where a few people still passed from time to time; once on the beach they were completely alone. He wanted to kiss her at once but did not dare, though she continued to smile at him encouragingly, without however uttering a word. The very idea that if only he had dared he might have touched her eyes or her mouth with his lips, moved him so deeply as to take his breath away.

“Oh, why are you so late? I thought you were never coming.” That was what he said, but he had already forgotten whatever resentment he had felt. Like certain animals when under the influence of love, he felt the need of uttering a complaint. And a moment later it seemed to him that his discontent was fully explained when he said gaily: “I can’t believe that I have really got you here beside me.” This reflection gave him a complete sensation of his own happiness. “And I thought that it was impossible to spend a more perfect evening than we spent together last week.” He felt so much happier now that he could even rejoice in his coming conquest as if it were already won.

They came all too soon to kissing, seeing that after the first impulse to clasp her suddenly in his arms he would have been content just to gaze at her and dream. But she was even less capable of understanding Emilio’s feelings than he was of understanding hers. He had ventured timidly to caress her hair, which seemed to him so much pure gold. But her skin was golden too, he said, she was all made of gold. To him it seemed that in doing so he had expressed everything in saying this, but Angiolina was far from thinking so. She remained thoughtful for a few moments, and then complained that one of her teeth was aching. “This one,” she said, opening her delicious mouth for him to see, and displaying her red gums and strong white teeth, which seemed like a casket of precious gems chosen and set there by the incomparable artificer—health. He did not laugh, but gravely kissed the mouth she held out to him.

Her vanity did not worry him since he profited by it so much; indeed, he was scarcely even aware of it. Like all who have never come into contact with the facts of life, he had believed himself stronger than the most exalted spirit, more indifferent than the most confirmed pessimist, and now he looked round him at the silent witnesses of this night’s great event.

The moon had not yet risen, but far out at sea an iridescent radiance hung upon the water as if the sun had but lately left it and everything were still reflecting its light. But on either side of the bay the distant blue headlands were already hidden in deepest shadow.