t.

She came out into the summer glare with the patient Petersen, and
breathed the summer heat as if she were drawing in new life with every
breath; and they drove home, down the long and lonely road that leads to
the new quarter, between dust-whitened trees, and then down into the
city and through the cooler streets, till at last the cab stopped before
the columns of the Palazzo Massimo.

Celia ran up the stairs, as if her light feet did not need to touch them
to carry her upwards, while Petersen solemnly panted after her, and she
went to her own room.

She had a vague desire to change everything in it, to get rid of all the
objects that reminded her of the miserable nights, and the sad hours of
day, which she had spent there; she wanted to move the bed to the other
end of the room, the writing table to the other window, the long glass
to a different place, to hang the walls with another colour, and to
banish the two tall candlesticks for ever. It would be like beginning
her life over again.

CHAPTER XVI

After this Cecilia no longer avoided Lamberti; on the contrary, she
sought opportunities of seeing him and of talking with him, for she was
sure that she had gained some sort of new strength which could protect
her against her imagination, till all her old illusions should vanish in
the clear light of daily familiarity. For some time she did not dream of
Lamberti, she believed that the spell was broken, and her fear of
meeting him diminished quickly.

She made her mother ask him to dinner, but he wrote an excuse and did
not come. Then she complained to Guido, and Guido reproached his friend.

"They really wish to know you better," he said. "If the Contessina ever
felt for you quite the same antipathy which you felt for her, she has
got over it. I think you ought to try to do as much. Will you?"

The invitation was renewed for another day, and Lamberti accepted it. In
the evening, in order to give his friend a chance of talking with
Cecilia, Guido sat down by the Countess, and began to discuss matters
connected with the wedding. It would have been contrary to all
established custom that the marriage should take place without a
contract, and that alone was a subject about which much could be said.
Guido insisted that Cecilia should remain sole mistress of her fortune,
and the Countess would naturally have made no objection, but the
Princess had told her, and had repeated m