g beside
him.

The scene came back with excessive vividness. There was the evening
light, the first tinge of violet on the Samnite mountains, the base of
Monte Cavo already purple, the glow on Frascati, and nearer, on Marino;
Rome was at her feet, in a rising mist beyond the flowing river. Guido
talked on, but she did not hear him. She heard another voice and other
words, less gentle and less calm. She felt other eyes upon her, waiting
for hers to answer them, she felt a hand stealing near to hers as her
own lay on the bench at her side.

Still Guido talked, needing no reply, perfectly confident and happy. She
did not hear what he said, but when he paused she mechanically nodded
her head, as if agreeing with him, and instantly lost herself again. She
could not help it. She expected the touch, and the look, and then the
blinding rush that used to come after it, lifting her from her feet and
carrying her whole nature away as the south wind whirls dry leaves up
with it and far away.

That did not come, and presently she was covering her face with both
hands, shaking a little, and Guido was anxiously asking what had
happened.

"Nothing," she answered rather faintly. "It is nothing. It will be over
in a moment."

He thought that she had felt the sudden chill of the evening which is
sometimes dangerous in Rome in midsummer, and he rose at once.

"We had better go in before you catch cold," he said.

"Yes. Let us go in."

For the first time, his words really jarred on her. For the rest of her
life, he would tell her when to go indoors before catching cold. He was
possessive, complacent; he already looked upon her as a person in his
charge, if not as a part of his property. Unreasoningly, she said to
herself it was no concern of his whether she caught cold or not, and
besides, there was no question of such a thing. She had covered her eyes
with her hands for a very different reason, and was ashamed of having
done it, which made matters worse. In anger she told herself boldly that
she wished that he were not himself, only that once, but that he were
Lamberti, who at least took the trouble to amuse her and never put on
paternal airs to enquire about her health.

It was the beginning of revolt. Guido dined with them that evening, and
she was silent and absent-minded. Before the hour at which he usually
went away, she rose and bade him good night, saying that she was a
little tired.

"I am sure you caught cold to-day,