tempting dreams of
liberty, equality, fraternity, and the violent destruction of ladies and
gentlemen.

So she lived, and so she learned many things of Settimia, and looked
upon herself as the absolute property of the man she loved and had
saved; and she was perfectly happy, if not perfectly good.

"When I am of age," Marcello used to say, "I shall buy a beautiful
little palace near the Tiber, and you shall live in it."

"Why?" she always asked. "Are we not happy here? Is it not cool in
summer, and sunny in winter? Have we not all we want? When you marry,
your wife will live in the splendid villa on the Janiculum, and when you
are tired of her, you will come and see Regina here. I hope you will
always be tired of her. Then I shall be happy."

Marcello would laugh a little, and then he would look grave and
thoughtful, for he had not forgotten Aurora, and sometimes wondered what
she was doing, as a young man does who is losing his hold upon himself,
and on the things in which he has always believed. He who has never
lived through such times and outlived them, knows neither the world nor
himself.

Marcello wondered whether Aurora would ever meet Regina face to face,
and what would happen if he were called upon to choose between the two.
He would choose Regina, he said to himself, when he was going down the
steep way from the villa to the little house, eager for her touch, her
voice, her breath, and feeling in his pocket the key that opened the
garden gate. But when the hours had passed, and he slowly walked up the
road under the great plane-trees, in the cool of the late evening,
glancing at the distant lights of Rome beyond the Tiber, and dimly
conscious that something was still unsatisfied, then he hesitated and he
remembered his boyish love, and fancied that if he met Aurora in the way
they would stand still, each finding the other in the other's eyes, and
silently kiss, as they had kissed long ago. Yet, with the thought, he
felt shame, and he blushed, alone there under the plane-trees.

But Aurora had never come back to Rome, and the small apartment that
overlooked the Forum of Trajan had other tenants. It was strange that
the Contessa and her daughter should not have returned, and sometimes
Marcello felt a great longing to see them. He said "them" to himself at
such times, but he knew what he meant.

So time went on. Corbario said that he himself must really go to San
Domenico, to look after the Calabrian prop