They both felt the necessity of putting an end, at least for that evening, to this perilous conversation. Andrea affected an almost over-strained courtesy. Elena became even gentler, almost humble. A nervous tremor shook her continually.

She took her cloak from the chair and Andrea hastened to a.s.sist her. As she did not succeed in finding the armholes, Andrea guided her hand to it but scarcely touched her. He then offered her her hat and veil.

'There is a looking-gla.s.s in the next room if you would like----'

'No, thank you.' She went over beside the fireplace, where on the wall hung a quaint little old mirror in a frame surrounded by little figures, carved in so airy and vivacious a style that they seemed rather to be of malleable gold than of wood. It was a charming thing, the work doubtless of some delicate artist of the fifteenth century and designed to reflect the charms of some Mona Amorrosisca or some Laldomine. Many a time in the old happy days Elena had put on her veil in front of this dim, lack l.u.s.tre mirror. She remembered it again now.

On seeing her reflection rise out of its misty depths she was stirred by a singular emotion. A rush of profound sadness came over her. She did not speak.

All this time Andrea was watching her intently.

Her preparations concluded, she said, 'It must be very late.'

'Not very--about six o'clock, I think.'

'I sent away my carriage. I would be very grateful if you could send for a closed cab for me.'

'Will you excuse me then if I leave you alone for a moment? My servant is out.'

She a.s.sented. 'And please tell the man yourself where to go to--the Hotel Quirinal.'

He went out and shut the door behind him. She was alone.

She cast a rapid glance around her, embracing the whole room with an indefinable look that lingered on the vases of flowers. The room seemed to her larger, the ceiling higher than she remembered. She began to feel a little giddy. She did not notice the scent of the flowers any longer, but the atmosphere of the room was close and heavy as in a hot-house.

Andrea's image appeared to her in a sort of intermittent flashes--a vague echo of his voice rang in her ears. Was she going to faint?--Oh, the delight of it if she might close her eyes and abandon herself to this languor!

She gave herself a little shake and went over to one of the windows, which she opened, and let the breeze blow in her face. Somewhat revived by this she turned back into the room. The pale flame of the candles sent flickering shadows over the walls. The fire burned low but sufficed to light up in part the pious figures on the screen made of stained gla.s.s from a church window. The cup of tea stood where Andrea had laid it down on the table, cold and untouched. The chair cushion retained the impress of the form that had leaned against it. All the objects surrounding her breathed an ineffable melancholy, which condensed itself in a heavy weight upon Elena's heart, till it sank beneath the well nigh insupportable burden.

_'Mio Dio! mio Dio!'_

She wished she could make her escape unseen. A puff of wind inflated the curtains, made the candles flicker, raised a general rustle through the room. She shivered, and almost without knowing what she did, she called--

'Andrea!'

Her own voice--that name in the silence startled her strangely, as if neither voice nor name had come from her lips. Why was Andrea so long in returning? She listened.----There was no sound but the dull deep inarticulate murmur of the city. Not a carriage pa.s.sed across the piazza of the Trinita de' Monti. As the wind came in strong gusts from time to time, she closed the window, catching a glimpse as she did so of the point of the obelisk, black against the starry sky.

Possibly Andrea had not found a conveyance at once on the Piazza Barberini. She sat herself down to wait on the sofa and tried to calm her foolish agitation, avoiding all heartsearchings and endeavouring to fix her attention on external objects. Her eyes wandered to the figures on the fire-screen, faintly visible by the light of the dying logs. On the mantelpiece a great white rose in one of the vases was dropping its petals softly, languidly, one by one, giving an impression of something subtly feminine and sensuous. The cup-like petals rested delicately on the marble, like flakes of snow.

Ah, how sweet that fragrant snow had been _then_! she thought.

Rose-leaves strewed the carpets, the divan, the chairs, and she was laughing, happy in the midst of the devastation, and her happy lover was at her feet----

A carriage stopped down in the street. She rose and shook her aching head to banish the dull weight that seemed to paralyse her. The next moment, Andrea entered out of breath.

'Forgive me,' he said, 'for keeping you so long, but I could not find the porter, so I went down to the Piazza di Spagna. The carriage is waiting for you.'

'Thanks,' answered Elena with a timid glance at him through her black veil.

He was grave and pale but quite calm.

'I expect my husband to-morrow,' she went on in a low faint voice. 'I will send you a line to let you know when I can see you again.'

'Thank you,' answered Andrea.

'Good-bye then,' she said, holding out her hand.

'Shall I see you down to the street? There is no one there.'

'Yes--come down with me.'

She looked about her a little hesitatingly.

'Have you forgotten anything?' asked Andrea.

She was looking at the flowers, but she answered, 'Ah--yes--my card-case.'

Andrea sprang to fetch it from the table. '_A stranger here_?' he read as he handed it to her.

'_No, my dear, a friend_----'

Her answer was quick, her voice eager. Then suddenly with a smile peculiarly her own, half imploring, half seductive, a mixture of timidity and tenderness, she said: '_Give me a rose._'

Andrea went from vase to vase gathering all the roses into one great bunch which he could scarcely hold in his hands--some of them shed their petals.

'They were for you--all of them,' he said without looking at her.

Elena hung her head and turned to go in silence followed by Andrea. They descended the stairs still in silence. He could see the nape of her neck so fair and delicate where the little dark curls mingled with the gray-blue fur.

'Elena!' he cried her name in a low voice, incapable any longer of fighting against the pa.s.sion that filled his heart to bursting.

She turned round to him with a finger on her lips--a gesture of agonised entreaty--but her eyes burned through the shadow. She hastened her steps, flung herself into the carriage and felt rather than saw him lay the roses in her lap.

'Good-bye! Good-bye!'

And when the carriage turned away she threw herself back exhausted and burst into a pa.s.sion of sobs, tearing the roses to pieces with her poor frenzied hands.

CHAPTER III

So she had come, she had come! She had re-entered the rooms in which every piece of furniture, every object must retain some memory for her, and she had said--'I am yours no more, can never be yours again, never!'

and--'Could you suffer to share me with another?'--Yes, she had dared to fling those words in his face, in that room, in sight of all these things!

A rush of pain--atrocious, immeasurable, made up of a thousand wounds, each distinct from the other and one more piercing than the other, came over him and goaded him to desperation. Pa.s.sion enveloped him once more in a thousand tongues of fire, re-kindling in him an inextinguishable desire for this woman who belonged to him no more, re-awakening in his memory every smallest detail of past caresses and all the sweet mad doings of those days. And yet through it all, there persisted the strange difficulty in identifying that Elena with the Elena of to-day, who seemed to him altogether another woman, one whom he had never known, never held in his arms. The torture of his senses was such that he thought he must die of it. Impurity crept through his blood like a corroding poison.

The impurity which _then_ the winged flame of the soul had covered with a sacred veil, had surrounded with a mystery that was half divine, appeared _now_ without the veil and without the mystery as a mere carnal l.u.s.t, a piece of gross sensuality. He knew that the ardour he had felt to-day in her presence was not Love--had nothing in common with Love--for when she had cried--'Could you suffer to share me with another?'--Why, yes, he could suffer it perfectly.

Nothing therefore--nothing in him had remained intact. Even the memory of his grand pa.s.sion was now corrupted, sullied, debased. The last spark of hope was extinct. He had reached his lowest level, never to rise again.