Dinner was gayer than luncheon had been; Ragna, now quite herself again, feeling as does a bather when the first cold plunge has been made, entertained them all by her gay sallies and quiet wit. The coloured lanterns swinging from the pergola, the music on the terrace, the many tables of merry diners calling for pesciolini d' Arno, fritto misto and Chianti all seemed delightful to her unaccustomed eyes. They drank her health and Egidio's and she smiled, and sparkled; it seemed to her that she had really reached port, that the worst of her troubles must be over. So when Egidio squeezed her hand under the table, she returned the pressure, and Ferrati who saw the movement rejoiced that all was well. Ragna smiled at him and at Egidio, but the latter's head being in the shadow, she did not see the expression of his burning, gloating eyes fixed on the flushed face and shining hair under the white lace hat. He did not, however, escape the watchful Virginia.
Dinner was over at last and Ferrati and his wife on their way home, accompanied by much cracking of the fiaccheraio's whip, and Ragna seated in a carriage by Egidio's side let herself lapse into a sort of reverie. So it was done, she was married! She was the wife of Egidio Valentini, far from her home, her kindred! The sultry night air, through which a faint breeze was stirring, wafting the odour of the thick-lying dust to her nostrils, oppressed her. She longed for a breath from her native fjords, crisp and aromatic from mountain and fir woods, sharp with the tang of the sea. She closed her eyes to the noisy strolling crowd thronging the streets and a wave of homesickness swept over her. She fought it down and found solace in the thought that at last anxiety and fear of a public shame were over for her, that she was saved from disgrace, and through Valentini. A flood of gratitude welled up in her heart, she took his hand and raised it to her lips, tears brimming in her eyes.
"How good you are to me," she murmured, "How very good!"
He smiled and put his arm around her and she nestled back against it confidingly. Neither spoke again till they reached the house in the Via Serragli, but Egidio watched her obliquely out of those burning eyes of his, and his arm tingled where she leaned against it. He shifted his feet nervously once or twice and his breath came fast, but he gave no other sign of the emotion that possessed him. As they rattled over the Trinità bridge the full moon, reflected in the dark glancing waters below, shamed the yellow street lamps, and the houses towering above the Lung 'Arno Giucciardini glowed here and there with lights behind the barred windows. As the darkness of the narrowing street engulfed them, Ragna felt a vague uneasiness come over her—but was she not safe with her husband-friend?
They drew up before the door of a palazzo, Egidio paid the driver, and opened the heavy portone with a large iron key. They climbed to the first floor and at the sound of their approach a door on the landing opened disclosing Carolina silhouetted against the light within.
"The Signora is tired," said Egidio, in a slightly hoarse voice, "she wants to go to bed at once, take the light!" Then to Ragna, "Come, carissima, this is your room."
Carolina lit the way to a large bedroom, overlooking the street on one side and a garden on the other. It was furnished with a large old four-poster bed with canopy and valance, some armchairs, a table, a couch and a large writing desk. A screen hid the wash-stand, and Carolina had laid out Ragna's simple toilet necessaries on a monumental dressing table. A huge carved clothes-press stood against the wall.
"It is a beautiful room," said Ragna, but she shivered. With the wavering shadows of Carolina's guttering candle, it seemed an abode of grotesque and horrible ghostly shapes, a gloomy cavern haunted by kobolds and evil spirits.
"I am glad you like it," said Egidio gratified. "Good-night, mogliettina, sleep well." He kissed her on the forehead without bending, she was nearly as tall as he and withdrew.
Carolina helped her to undress and she crept into the huge bed with a sigh of relief, for the emotions of the day had tired her out. When the maid had left her she lay quite still, following with her eyes the unfamiliar outlines of this furniture, dimly seen by the flickering night-light. She wondered why she had felt no curiosity as to the rest of the apartment, why she had not even asked to see it. "Poor Egidio! I hope he was not disappointed! I shall be nicer to him to-morrow. He is so kind and this is a beautiful room, even if it is so large and strange and unhome-like—" Her thoughts were wandering drowsily on, when a sudden noise brought her to a sitting posture. A crack of light showed in the wall, then a door she had not seen before, opened and Egidio appeared, dressed for the night.