much too long.”

“According to you, who suppose that you know something about love, how long does passion last? By the way, perhaps you have got the figures with you to explain them?”

“Yes; passion lasts from six months to a year, love from a year to two years. You have been living a lie for more than a year. O Donna Maria, break this chain.”

“Are we meant to slay this love?” she exclaimed mockingly, with a shrill bitterness in her voice.

“You ought to slay it!”

“And am I afterwards to burn myself on the pyre like the widows of Malabar?” she continued, even more mockingly and bitterly.

“You ought to live and be happy.”

“With you, eh? With Gianni Provana?”

“With another,” he said in a low voice, looking at her.

“With whom?”

“With Emilio Guasco,” he ventured to say.

“Don’t repeat the infamy!” she cried, clenching her teeth.

A terrible silence came upon them. The sun had already invaded half of the simple garden among the thick box hedges and winter roses. The soft singing of a little bird issued here and there from the trees.

“Does he send you, Provana?” she continued, in a voice almost hoarse with annoyance, so great was the disdain which she was controlling within her.

“No, he doesn’t send me, but I am come all the same. Donna Maria, does it please you to continue to live outside the laws, outside morality, outside society, when the great cause of it is at an end? Does it please you still to sacrifice your decorum, your dignity, your name, not to love but to your fancy? Where are there any more the supreme compensations for all that you have lost? Where are there any more the rich sentimental and sensual rewards for that which you have thrown away and abandoned? How does your abnegation profit you any more? You have given all and are giving all, and meanwhile your life is empty, your soul is empty.”

Why did she listen so intently, without interrupting, without rebelling? Why was no shock given to her pride? And why did she cry out no more in protest? Gianni Provana so cold, so sceptical in his manner, was reaching at that time and in that singular place almost to eloquence. She who suspected him, despised and considered him a liar and a hypocrite, was listening to him, while her face contracted with suffering and disdain.

“Donna Maria, you had the courage to offend and abandon your husband who had done nothing to you, because you did not care to live in deceit and treachery: have another courage, worthy of you, that of flying from Marco Fiore, since you love him no more and he does not love you. Leave the house where you live in heavy and gloomy silence; re-enter the world, re-enter society. Be an honoured and respected lady, as you deserve to be for your beauty and your great soul.”

“To become what you tell me, Provana,” she replied precisely, in a hard voice, “I ought to return to my husband.”

“You ought to return.”

“And he would take me back?”

“He would take you back.”

“Forgetting all?”

“Forgiving you everything.”

“After three years of public scandal, of life together with Marco Fiore in the same city, under his eyes—my husband would do this?”

“He would do it because he believes in the law of pardon.”

“Knowing that I do not love him?”

“Knowing it quite well.”

“That I shall never love him?”

“Who can tell that?”

“I!” she proclaimed. “I shall never love him, and he knows it.”

“In spite of that, he desires to pardon you, and to give you back all that you have lost by your passion.”

“Why does he do this?”

“Because he is good.”

“A great many good people would never do it!”

“Because he has suffered much and learned much.”

“What have his sufferings to do with me?”

“He has pity for your sorrows.”

“Pity is not enough to do this, Provana.”

“Because he loves you,” Gianni Provana declared at last.

“What a poltroon!” she sneered with infinite contempt.

“Am I to tell Emilio Guasco this?”

“Tell him what you please.”

“His love does not move you?”

“No.”

“His pity does not soften you?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t his pardon seem a sublime act to you? Is he not a hero?”

“I am a miserable creature made of clay, and I do not understand sublimity.”

They were silent. The weather became warmer and slightly heavier, and the singing of the little birds in the trees grew weaker. Some of the roses had scattered their leaves on the ground.

“And with all this what are we going to do with Marco Fiore?” she broke in with irony.

“With Marco?”

“Yes, with him. What will he do when, according to you, I have returned to my husband? What will become of Marco?”

“He will be content to marry Vittoria Casalta. The girl has been waiting for him for three years.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed, in a voice scarcely recognisable.

Without greeting or looking at him she turned her back, and went quickly round the corner of the portico.

Nor did Gianni Provana dare to follow her.

IV

Maria had searched for Marco Fiore for an hour in all the places she supposed he might be; at the great door of Palazzo Fiore, in the via Bocca di Leone, leaving him word scribbled in pencil on a small piece of paper; at the Hunt Club, which he sometimes looked into towards noon; at the fencing rooms in the via Muratte, where two or three times a week he used to undergo a long sword exercise.

Porters, butlers, servants had seen the beautiful and elegant lady, dressed in white, hidden behind a white veil, ask with insistence for the noble Marco Fiore and go away slowly, as if not convinced that he was not in one of those places. Towards noon, agitated and silent, consumed by her emotion, she entered the little villa at Santa Maria Maggiore, and there, at the threshold, was Marco, who had just arrived, with a slightly languid smile on his lips and the habitual softness in his eyes.

“Ah, Marco, Marco, I have looked for you everywhere,” she stammered in confusion, taking him by the hand.

“What is the matter?” he asked, a little surprised, scrutinising her face.

“Come, Marco; come.”

Still leading him by the hand she made him cross the ante-room, the drawing-room, the little drawing-room, and the study, and did not stop till she was with him in the bedroom with its closed green shutters, whence entered the perfumes from a very tiny conservatory. Once within, she closed the door with a tired gesture. They were alone. She fixed him with her eyes right into his, placing her two hands on his shoulders, dominating him with her height. And to him never had her face seemed so beautiful and so ardent.

“Do you love me, Marco?”

“I love you,” he said with tender sweetness.

“You mustn’t say it so. Better, better. Do you love me?”

“I love you,” he replied, disturbed.

“As once upon a time, you must say, as once upon a time.”

“I love you, Maria,” he replied, still more disturbed.

“Do you love me as at first? Reply without hesitating, without thinking—as at first?”

Regarding him, scorching him with her glance, with the pressure of her white and firm hands on his shoulders, she subjugated him.

Already the youthful blood of Marco Fiore coursed in his veins, and the giddiness of passion, which for some time had not overcome his soul, mastered him.

“As at first,” he murmured, in a subdued voice.

“It is true you don’t want to lose me. Say it! Say it!”

“I would prefer to lose my soul.”