silent; her tears ceased. Then she fell, wearied out, into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
III
As she entered the courtyard of the Baths of Diocletian, where modern Rome has placed a museum for whatever the Tiber has restored, or whatever has been excavated in recent years, Maria Guasco closed her white lace parasol and looked around. The place seemed like the white and silent cloister of a Christian monastery. Four roomy covered portici surrounded a garden planted simply with rose-bushes, box hedges, and some small trees. In the middle rose a stone sundial, and on the right a well with an ancient pully from whose rope was hanging an old-fashioned bucket. The portici were quite white, and along their walls were hanging fragments of marble and pieces of Roman bas-reliefs. There was an occasional bust on its pedestal, and some wooden benches. But at the beginning of the summer, at ten in the morning, the place was without visitors. Donna Maria stopped undecidedly.
She was dressed in a white soft stuff which waved noiselessly about her, a large white and very fine veil surrounded her hat, her abundant hair, and oval face. Youth, primal and fresh, proceeded from all the whiteness in which she walked, like one of those dense, soft, white clouds which give a sense of spiritual voluptuousness to the eyes. Her beauty was illuminated by it, and beneath the transparency of her complexion her blood coursed more lively, rendering more rosy her delicate and expressive countenance. Only her eyes contained a tinge of disturbance in their colour, undecided between grey and blue. Something proud and sad concealed them, sometimes even extinguishing their glance. Donna Maria’s mouth, too, had not a shadow of a smile. While she stood there she was so wrapped in her thoughts and sensations, as almost to forget the reason for which she had come at that unusual hour to the Baths of Diocletian.
“Good-morning, Donna Maria,” said a gentleman, coming towards her, taking off his hat with an extremely correct bow.
“Good-morning, Provana,” she said, frowning slightly and biting her lip; “since when have you been a frequenter of museums and a lover of the ancient statues of Faustina and Britannicus?”
“Oh, I don’t care for them, cara Signora,” he hastened to say with an ironical smile, “I don’t understand them, and, therefore, I detest them.”
“Why, then?”
“To be able to speak to you alone in a place which is completely deserted at this hour and season.”
“Why don’t you come to my house?” she replied, growing more austere; “I am alone sometimes.”
“Yes; but Marco Fiore can come there any minute, neither can you deny him entrance,” he replied coldly.
“Do you hate Marco Fiore so much, Provana?”
“I don’t hate him, I envy him,” he added, again becoming the gallant.
“So you hasten to give me a meeting where he must not interfere, to tell me things he must not hear?” she replied with a sardonic laugh.
“But you have come to listen,” he observed craftily.
She bit her lip hard, and extracted from her gold chain-purse a note, folded in four, which she gave to him.
“Take back your letter, Provana, and goodbye.”
“Don’t go, Donna Maria, don’t go. Listen to me since you have come. It is a serious matter.”
“Good-bye, Provana,” she replied, almost reaching the main entrance.
“In Heaven’s name, don’t leave! The matter is really so important;” and his voice trembled with anxiety.
Donna Maria looked at him intently. Gianni Provana, whose correct and gentlemanly face, with its more than forty years, for the most part pleasing and inexpressive in lines and colouring, seemed genuinely moved. His monocle had fallen from its orbit, and he was a little pale. He twisted his moustaches nervously, and his mouth, still fresh in spite of its maturity, seemed to restrain a flow of words with difficulty.
Donna Maria had never seen him thus; Gianni, the man of moderation in every gesture and word, so often sceptical, so often cold, but never agitated, the common type, in fact, of the elegant gentleman who assumes a correct pose from infancy, who cloaks himself with a studied disdain for everything, and most especially for the things he is not aiming at, and the persons he does not understand.
“Really I can’t think of anything important to listen to from you,” she murmured, turning back for a step or two.
“However, it is so, Donna Maria. It is a question of your good which is immensely dear to me.”
“Why is it dear to you? How do I concern you?”
“Why, I esteem you deeply; I love you.”
“Still I don’t love you, neither do I esteem you,” she replied icily.
“Why don’t you esteem me?”
“Because you are a dissembler, Provana.”
“Dissembling is often necessary and most useful in life. It is often an act of prudence and benevolence.”
“That is the invention of liars.”
They walked together, side by side, along one of the portici, drawing further away towards the back of the edifice. Gianni Provana watched her half curiously and half anxiously; she was distracted, gazing intently on an unknown point, trailing her parasol.
“How far has loyalty served you, Donna Maria? You have lost reputation, position, and family.”
“I have gained liberty and love,” she replied, raising her head proudly.
“But not happiness.”
“Liberty is love,” she answered, with a cry of revolt.
“You are the prisoner of your horrible condition, Donna Maria, and you are not sure that Marco Fiore loves you,” he insisted, determined to say all.
“It is I who ought to love him.”
“You don’t love him, Donna Maria. I swear that you don’t love him.”
“Who makes you say this? Who has told you this?”
“I say it because I know it. I say it because it is necessary to open your eyes to yourself and upon Marco Fiore!”
“Why do you do this? For what obscure motive? For what perfidious interest?”
“In your own interest entirely, Donna Maria.”
“That can’t be. You are a calculator. You have a plan; reveal it at once. I prefer it. What is the motive of this meeting?”
“To persuade you that you do not love Marco Fiore, and that he does not love you.”
“Is it he, is it Marco Fiore who sends you?”
