tionately, and looked into his eyes.
It was a very tender look, very loving and gentle--such a look as none
but Giovanni had ever seen upon her face. He put his arm about her waist
and drew her to him, and kissed her dark cheek.

"I cannot bear to go away and leave you, even for a day," he said,
pressing her to his side.

"Why should you?" she murmured, looking up to him. "Why should he go,
after all? This has been such a silly affair. I wonder if that woman
thought that anything could ever come between you and me? That was what
made me think she was really mad."

"And an excellent reason," he answered. "Anybody must be insane who
dreams of parting us two. It seems as though a year ago I had not loved
you at all."

"I am so glad," said Corona. "Do you remember, last summer, on the tower
at Saracinesca, I told you that you did not know what love was?"

"It was true, Corona--I did not know. But I thought I did. I never
imagined what the happiness of love was, nor how great it was, nor how it
could enter into every thought."

"Into every thought? Into your great thoughts too?"

"If any thoughts of mine are great, they are so because you are the
mainspring of them," he answered.

"Will it always be so?" she asked. "You will be a very great man some
day, Giovanni; will you always feel that I am something to you?"

"Always--more than anything to me, more than all of me together."

"I sometimes wonder," said Corona. "I think I understand you better than
I used to do. I like to think that you feel how I understand you when you
tell me anything. Of course I am not clever like you, but I love you so
much that just while you are talking I seem to understand everything. It
is like a flash of light in a dark room."

Giovanni kissed her again.

"What makes you think that I shall be great, Corona? Nobody ever thinks I
am even clever. My father would laugh at you, and say it is quite enough
greatness to be born a Saracinesca. What makes you think it?"

Corona stood up beside him and laid her delicate hand upon his thick,
close-cut black hair, and gazed into his eyes.

"I know it," she said. "I know it, because I love you so. A man like you
must be great. There is something in you that nobody guesses but I, that
will amaze people some day--I know it."

"I wonder if you could tell me what it is? I wonder if it is really there
at all?" said Giovanni.

"It is ambition," said Corona, gravely. "You are the most ambitious m