n.

'I am following your advice. I have not tried to relight the cigarette.'

'And yet, do you know, in this one instance, I believe it would be worth
while. Have you noticed her particularly? It seems to me that she has
become more beautiful. I cannot help thinking there is something--how
shall I express it?--something new, something indescribable about her.
No, _new_ is not the word. She has gained intensity without losing
anything of the peculiar character of her beauty; in short, she is _more
Elena_ than the Elena of two years ago--the quintessence of herself. It
is, most likely, the effect of her second spring, for I should fancy
she must be hard on thirty. Don't you think so?'

As he listened, Andrea felt the dull ashes of his love stir and kindle.
Nothing revives and excites a man's desire so much as hearing from
another the praises of a woman he has loved too long or wooed in vain. A
love in its death-throes may thus be prolonged as the result of the envy
or the admiration of another; for the disgusted or wearied lover
hesitates to abandon what he possesses or is struggling to possess in
favour of a possible successor.

'Don't you think so?' Musellaro repeated. 'And, besides, to make a
Menelaus of that Heathfield would in itself be an unspeakable
satisfaction.'

'So I think,' answered Andrea, forcing himself to adopt his friend's
light tone. 'Well, we shall see.'

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

'Maria, grant me this one moment of unalloyed sweetness! Let me tell you
all that is in my heart.'

She rose. 'Forgive, me,' she said gently, without anger or bitterness
and with an audible quiver of emotion in her voice. 'Forgive me but I
cannot listen to you. You pain me very much.'

'Well, I will not say anything--only stay--I implore you.'

She seated herself once more. It was like the days of Schifanoja come
back again. The same matchless grace of the delicate head drooping under
the masses of hair as under some divine chastisement, the same deep and
tender shadow, a fusion of diaphanous violet and soft blue, surrounding
the tawny brown eyes.

'I only wanted,' Andrea went on humbly, 'I only wanted to remind you of
the words I spoke, the words you listened to that morning in the park
under the shadow of the trees, in an hour that will always remain sacred
in my memory.'

'I have not forgotten them.'

'Since that day my unhappiness has become ever deeper, darker, more
poignant. I can never tell yo