"May I know how you came to call your book The Shadow of a Flame?"
"Yes; it's very simple," she answered. "I was rather unhappy. I had stayed awake all night—reading by candle-light. My window looked to the east. When the sun rose, my candle was still burning. And as I started to blow it out, I noticed that in the sunlight, its flame cast a shadow on the page of my book. And it came to me that we were all like that—like little flames casting shadows in some greater light. And that our passions were also like little flames that cast shadows—of sorrow ... regret ... despair ... weariness...."
"Yes," said Amaldi, "yes—it is like that...."
Something in the timbre of her voice as she said the words, "sorrow ... regret ... despair ... weariness," moved him deeply. He did not dare to say more. He was not at any time a man of fluent speech, now his earnest desire not to be "indiscreet" in the least degree made him feel oddly dumb.
Sophy herself changed the note of their conversation to a lighter key.
"Tell me," she said suddenly, "is the home that you care for most in the town or in the country? I can't help thinking that your real home is in some beautiful country part of Italy."
"Yes," he said, his face lighting. "On Lago Maggiore."
"Ah! I was sure of it! I'd thought of Como. Is your lake as beautiful as Como?"
"I think it more beautiful. I believe you would think so, too. How I should like to show it to you—the Lake and our old Tenuta. We have a dear old place. I live there most of the time with my mother. We are great friends, my mother and I."
"Ah! that is beautiful!" she said warmly. "That is what I want my son to feel for me when he grows up."