"Oh, well," growled Carlo. "I suppose you know her best. Women are cackling cats."
"Mixed metaphor," murmured Clarissa, and went to sleep comfortably, feeling that Carlo was a wall.
Nancy was married in Rome. All the poets of Italy came with poems, and Nino brought a necklet of pearls . From the Quirinal came a pendant, with a picture of a boy's face set in diamonds.
After the wedding-breakfast all the guests left, passing to their carriages down the red carpet that stretched from the door to the edge of the pavement. Then Nancy, in her mouse-grey travelling-gown, kissed Valeria, and wept and said good-bye. And kissed Nino, and wept and said good-bye. And she went with her husband down the red carpet to the carriage. Carlo and Clarissa, Aunt Carlotta and Adèle followed to the station, where there were great crowds waiting to see them off.
Valeria and Nino remained alone in the desolate room. Valeria's face was hidden in her hands. She was looking down the days of the future, and saw them lonely, dark and desolate. Nino gazed through tear-blurred eyes at the bowed figure before him, and his thoughts went back through the years. Bending forward, he took her hand and kissed it. She smiled wanly.
"What are you thinking of?" she said.
"I was thinking of Nancy, and of the past," said Nino. "Of her father, poor Tom, who died so suddenly——"
"It was to save Nancy," said Valeria.
"And of the old grandfather who died alone on the hill-side——"