out it? You always say that you were never really in
love. How can you tell what you would do?"

"I suppose I cannot be quite sure. But then--the thing is ridiculous! A
man must be half a poet, he must have sensibilities, ideals, visions, a
nervous heart, an exaggerating eye and a mind sensitized like a
photographer's plate to receive impressions! Do you see me provided with
all that stuff?"

He laughed again, somewhat intentionally, for he meant to amuse
Gianluca.

"Nor myself either," answered the latter. "I am much simpler than you
imagine."

"Are you? So much the better. But it makes very little difference, since
you are to be happy, after all. Seriously, I do not believe that this
invitation can mean anything else. If it does--if she is not in
earnest--" he checked himself.

Gianluca looked at him and did not understand his expression.

"What were you going to say?" asked the younger man, with some
curiosity.

"Then take one of the other three!" said Taquisara, roughly, and he rose
from his seat and walked to the window.

The Duchessa's answer to Veronica was dignified and friendly. After
expressing her cordial thanks for the invitation, she went on to say
that besides the pleasure it would give her and her son to spend a few
days under Veronica's hospitable roof, she was too well acquainted by
hearsay with the splendid climate and situation of Muro to refuse an
offer, by accepting which she might contribute much to Gianluca's
recovery, and she went on to speak of the high mountain air and the
sunshine of the Basilicata. There was truth in what she said, of course,
and she was too proud not to make the most of it, entirely passing over
more personal matters in order to give it the greatest possible
prominence. As for Taquisara, though she guessed that he was almost
indispensable to Gianluca in Naples, she made no mention of him. It
would have been easy for her to suggest that he also might be invited,
but she suspected that her son could do without him well enough when
privileged to see Veronica every day; moreover, he would be in the way,
and would probably himself fall in love with his young hostess, who, in
her turn, might take a sudden fancy to the handsome Sicilian.

It was not until the things which Veronica hastily ordered from Naples
arrived in huge carts from Eboli that she began to reflect seriously
upon what she had done under a sudden impulse. The Duchessa wrote that
she should require four