He was kissing the pure virginal moonlight.

Later on, they preferred to this place the thickets on the way up to Hunter’s Hill, as they felt more and more the need to be alone together. They would sit side by side under a tree, and divide their time between eating and drinking and kisses.

By now he had almost given up taking her flowers, he bought her sweets instead, but soon she refused these as well, they were bad for her teeth, she said. Their place was taken by cheese and sausages, bottles of wine and liqueurs, all of which made a considerable hole in Emilio’s slender purse.

But he was only too willing to sacrifice to her the small savings he had accumulated during all the long years of his uneventful bachelor life; he would begin to economize again, he thought, when his small store began to run out. He was much more occupied for the moment by another question. Who had taught Angiolina how to kiss? He could not remember now anything about the first time she had kissed him; he had been so much occupied in kissing her that the kiss she had given him in return had only seemed to him to be the necessary complement of his own; but he could not help thinking that if her mouth had really been so ardent in returning his kisses he must have felt a certain amount of surprise. Was it he then who had initiated her into an art in which he was himself but a novice?

And now she confessed. It was Merighi who had taught her to kiss. She laughed when she related how many kisses he used to give her. Emilio must surely be joking if he pretended to doubt whether Merighi would have taken advantage of his position as her fiancé at least to kiss her as much as he wanted.

Brentani did not feel in the least jealous of Merighi who had, after all, so much better claim to her than himself. But he was distressed that she should speak about him so lightly. He felt she ought rather to have shed tears each time she mentioned him. When as sometimes happened he let her see how hurt he himself felt at her showing so little feeling, she would force her lovely face to put on a very dismal expression, and conscious that she was being in some way reproached, she would try to justify herself by reminding him that she had been made quite ill by Merighi’s desertion. “Oh, if I had died then I should not have cared.” A few minutes later she would be laughing loudly in the arms which he had opened to receive and comfort her.

She seemed to regret nothing, and this surprised him as much as it did to discover how deeply he pitied her and sympathized with her. Was he really in love with her? Or was it only that he felt so grateful to the sweet creature for behaving as though she existed solely for his delight? For she was an ideal mistress in that she did all that he wanted without making any demands upon him.

It would be late when he got home, still in a state of pleasurable excitement, and quite unable to talk about anything else to his pale-faced sister, who left whatever she was doing to keep him company while he ate his supper; unable even to feign the smallest interest in all the petty affairs of the household which made up the whole of Amalia’s life, and about which she had always been accustomed to tell him. She would go on again at last with whatever she was doing, while he continued to eat his supper in silence, and they would both remain there in the same room, each occupied with their own thoughts.

One evening she sat gazing at him for a long while without his noticing it, and then, with a forced smile, she asked: “Have you been with her all this time?”

“Who do you mean by her?” he said, and suddenly burst out laughing. Then, because he felt he must talk to someone, he confessed. It had been such an unforgettable evening. He had loved her in the moonlight, in the warm evening air, with all that boundless lovely landscape spread out before them, existing, as it seemed for them alone and for their love. But he could not explain what he was really feeling. How could he give his sister an idea of what that evening had been, without telling her about Angiolina’s kisses?

But while he kept on repeating: “What a light there was, what a delicious air!” she divined on his lips the print of those kisses which really filled his thoughts. She hated that unknown woman who had stolen away her companion and her only comfort. Now that she saw him in love like all the rest of the world, she felt she could not bear to be left without that one example of voluntary resignation to the same sad fate as her own. How dreadfully sad it was! She began to cry, at first shedding silent tears which she tried to conceal in her work and then, when he saw her tears falling, bursting out into violent sobs which she attempted in vain to repress.

She tried to explain away her tears. She had not been well all day, she had not been able to sleep all the night before, she had eaten nothing, she was feeling very weak.

He did not question the truth of what she said.

“If you are not better tomorrow, we will send for the doctor.” Then Amalia’s grief changed to anger that he should allow himself to be so easily deceived as to the cause of her tears; it proved how completely indifferent he was to her. She lost all self-control, and burst out that he need not bother to send for the doctor; it was not worth while getting better, only to lead the sort of life she led. What had she got to live for? What point was there in going on being alive? Then seeing that he still persisted in understanding nothing she confessed the real cause of her grief: “Not even you have any use for me.”

He still did not understand, and instead of sympathizing with her, he got angry in his turn. All his youth he had been so lonely and sad; he surely deserved some distraction from time to time. Angiolina was of no importance in his life; it was only an adventure which would last a few months and no more. “It is very unkind of you to reproach me for it.” He only began to pity her when he saw her go on weeping silently in a state of helpless despair. To comfort her, he promised to come home more often and keep her company, he said they would read and study together as they used to do, but she must try and be more cheerful, for he did not like to be with unhappy people.