"Here," said Ragna, taking a little brooch from its case and tendering it to the maid, "take this, Rosa,—it is the little present I spoke of."
"Ma Signorina, che le pare?" exclaimed Rosa with great deprecation, "it is much too fine for me,—I will take nothing for so small a service. It is a night made by the good God for lovers, do I not understand that? I also have an innamorato, Signorina!"
Ragna, who two hours earlier would have felt unspeakably humiliated by such a speech, now was conscious of a fellow feeling for the girl—such is the freemasonry of love. She smiled and tucking the trinket into Rosa's hand, said:
"Then you will wear this to remember me by, and also to look well in the eyes of your fidanzato."
"Grazie Signorina, a thousand thanks! And may your innamorato be as faithful as you are beautiful."
"Faithful," repeated Ragna to herself when she had closed the door behind the retreating form of the maid. "What is faithlessness,—memory? For us there can be no other."
It pleased her to think of her romance as set apart from the common lot.
"It is an oasis in the desert," she thought,—"it will be as he says, something to look back on all our lives."
For a long time she lay awake, gazing into the dark, her pulses throbbing as she thought of his kisses.