instead of her hand, she laid her cheek upon it. He kissed the white
nape of her neck.

'Do you hear it beat?'

'Yes, and it speaks to me.'

'What does it tell you?'

'That you do not love me.'

'What does it tell you?' repeated the young man, biting her neck softly
and preventing her from raising her head.

She laughed.

'That you love me.'

She removed her cloak, her hat and her gloves, and then went to smell
the bouquets of white lilac that filled the high Florentine vases like
those of the _tondo_ in the Borghese Gallery. Her step on the carpet was
extraordinarily light, and nothing could exceed her grace of attitude as
she buried her face in the delicate tassels of bloom.

She bit off the end of a spray, and holding it between her lips--

'Take it,' she said.

They exchanged a long, long kiss in among the perfume.

He drew her closer and said with a tremor in his voice, 'Come.'

'No, Andrea--no; let us stay here. I will make the tea for you.'

She took her lover's hand and twined her fingers into his. 'I don't know
what is the matter with me. My heart is so full of love that I could
almost cry.'

The words trembled on her lips; her eyes were full of tears.

'Oh, if only I need not leave you, if I could stay here always!'

Her heart was so full that it lent an indefinable sadness to her words.

'When I think that you can never know the whole extent of my love! That
I can never know yours! Do you love me? Tell me, say it a hundred, a
thousand times--always--you love me?'

'As if you did not know!'

'No, I do not know.'

She uttered the words in so low a tone that Andrea hardly caught them.

'Maria!'

She silently laid her head on Andrea's breast, waiting for him to speak,
as if listening to his heart.

He regarded that hapless head, weighed down by the burden of a sad
foreboding; he felt the light pressure of that noble, mournful brow upon
his breast, which was hardened by falsehood, encased in duplicity as in
a cuirass of steel. He was stirred by genuine emotion; a sense of human
pity for this most human suffering gripped him by the throat. And yet
this agitation of soul resolved itself into lying words and lent a
quiver of seeming sincerity to his voice.

'You do not know!--Your voice was so low that it died away upon your
lips; at the bottom of your heart something protested against your
words; all, all the memories of our love rose up and protested against
them. Oh! _you do not k