Her eyes rose involuntarily to a portrait of her husband, the tribute of an enthusiastic if untalented pupil, which he had considered good enough for his wife's sitting-room, and she shuddered. The picture though poorly painted, was a striking likeness, almost a caricature. The cunning expression of the handsome eyes, the slight twist of the nose, the repulsive sensual mouth half hidden by beard and moustache were faithfully if naively depicted. The right hand hung over the back of a chair, a hand in curious contrast to the face, a well-formed strong but delicate artist's hand, but even here the slight grasping curve of the pointed fingers, the thickness of the thumb betrayed the nature of the man.
Often she had wished to destroy the picture, or at least to take it down, hide it, banish it from her sight, but Egidio would hear of no such thing; it seemed to possess, to fill the room with a hated presence as Valentini filled her life. Even when she turned her back upon it, the knowledge of its presence obtruded itself upon her inner consciousness, she could not escape it.
To-night, however, it seemed to have lost some of its customary power. With a defiant lift of her shoulder she rose and went to her writing-desk, a monumental piece of furniture which had once belonged to a Cardinal, and opening a secret drawer, reminiscent of inquisitorial mysteries, took out her old writing-case, shabby and worn, with one of the hinges broken. The lock still held, however, and she opened it with a key on her watch-chain. Inside were the sketch Angelescu had made of her feeding the gulls, and his letter to her. She returned to her seat and studied the drawing; the paper was yellow, the pencil-strokes faded and rubbed, but the little sketch had kept its air of freshness and force, the girlish figure seemed to defy the elements with all the ignorant courage of youth.
"And that was I," said Ragna softly; it seemed to her that it must have been some other girl, long, long ago, in the dim ages past.
"And it was not eight years ago," she said, counting on her fingers. She put the drawing down and turned to the letter.
"What a blind fool I was not to understand! Oh if only, if only—! But I must not see him now, it would not be right. I must dree my weird. Besides he will have forgotten me long ago—ah but will he? He said in his letter 'now and always,' and he meant it, but so much water has flowed under the bridges!"
She sank into a reverie, calling up his every word and look, his steady dog-like eyes, the firm grasp of his hand. She tried to imagine what her life would have been like all these years, if instead of Egidio she had had him by her side. A knock on the door startled her; she would not have been surprised to see Angelescu himself on the threshold, indeed she all but expected it for an instant, but the door opening, only disclosed the familiar figure of Carolina, who came forward timidly, quite stripped of her usually assured manner.
"What is it, my girl?" asked Ragna kindly.
"Signora," she answered, with lowered head, "I do not know how to say it nor what you will think of me, but I have come to give notice, I wish to go."
"You wish to go!" exclaimed Ragna with the greatest surprise, "you wish to leave me? Why, Carolina, what in the world do you mean by that?"