n--and they hate it
all the more because they cannot despise it with any show of reason.

Gianluca was silently happy, perfectly satisfied to hear Veronica's
voice, to watch the face he loved, and to feel that between her and him
there was something which no one knew. When they spoke, there was a
little constraint on both sides; but when they were silent, the bond was
instantly renewed. In silence and in imagination, they were writing to
each other the impressions of which they would not speak. Gianluca was
telling her how grateful he was to her for insisting that Taquisara
should stay, after all, and was pointing out to her that his friend was
bravely bearing the burden of a conversation which kept his father and
mother from prosing about the necessity of a companion for Veronica.
Veronica was replying that Taquisara was more agreeable than she had
expected, but that if he had been as silent as the Sphinx, or as noisy
as Alexander the Coppersmith, she would have pressed him to stay because
he was her friend's friend. There was a good deal about Taquisara in
their imaginary correspondence.

But both felt a little more constraint, when they talked, than they had
ever felt before, for both knew that on the morrow, or on the next day,
at the latest, they were sure to be alone together,--quite alone,--for
the first time; and they wondered whether the curious duality of their
acquaintance and intimacy by word and by letter could be maintained
hereafter, or whether it would suddenly resolve itself into a unity in
the shape of a friendship in which they should speak to each other as
they wrote.

They knew that something of the sort must happen. The Duca and his wife
would certainly not stand sentry from morning till night over the young
people, when they themselves so ardently desired the marriage; and
Taquisara was not the man to be in the way when he was not wanted. It
would be in Veronica's power to put off the meeting, if she chose to do
so; but she knew, and Gianluca guessed, that she would not. Whatever
society might say about it, she had assumed the position and the
independence of a married woman, and had gone further than married women
of her age would generally have the courage to go. To hesitate now, and
to draw back from the possibility of being left alone with any one of
her guests, would be absurd. She would not seek the interview, nor she
would not do anything to avoid it. But she did not wish to be forced
in