your voice, in your eyes, your
attitudes, your slightest movement. All that comes to me from you
intoxicates me like a kiss, and when I touch your hand I know not which
is greater, the rapture of my senses or the exaltation of my soul.'

He lightly laid his hand on hers. She trembled, drawn by a wild desire
to throw herself upon his breast to offer him, at last, her lips, her
kiss, herself. It seemed to her--for she believed blindly in Andrea's
words--that by so doing, she would bind him to her finally with an
indissoluble bond. She felt that she was going to swoon, to die. It was
as if the tumults of passion from which she had already suffered swelled
her heart and increased the present storm; as if, into this one moment
of time were gathered all the varying emotions she had experienced since
she first knew this man. The roses of Schifanoja bloomed again among the
shrubs and laurels of the Villa Medici.

'I shall wait, Maria. I shall be true to my promises. I ask nothing of
you. I wait and look forward to the supreme moment. That moment will
come, I know it, for the power of love is invincible. And all your
fears, all your terrors will vanish; and the communion of the body will
seem to you as pure as the communion of the soul; for all flames are
alike in purity.'

He clasped Maria's ungloved hand in his. The gardens seemed deserted.
From the palace of the Accademia came not a sound, not a voice. Clear
through the silence, they heard the lisp of the fountain in the middle
of the esplanade; the avenues stretched away towards the Pincio,
straight and rigid as if enclosed between two walls of bronze, upon
which the gilding of the sunset still lingered; the absolute immobility
of all things suggested the idea of a petrified labyrinth; the reeds
round the basin of the fountain were not less motionless than the
statues.

'I feel,' said Donna Maria, half-closing her eyes, 'as if I were on one
of the terraces at Schifanoja--far, far away from Rome--alone--with you.
When I shut my eyes, I see the sea.'

Born of her love and of the silence, she saw a vision rise up before her
and spread wide under the setting sun. Andrea's gaze was upon her; she
said no more, but she smiled faintly. As she uttered the two
words--'with you'--she closed her eyes, but her mouth seemed suddenly to
grow luminous as if on it were concentrated all the splendour veiled by
her quivering lids and her eyelashes.

'I feel as if none of these things e