Thus was established between them the language of allusion.
The Marchese made no secret to Lily of the fact that women interested him supremely. She thought that he was not making love to her when he told her frankly that he had loved often.
"Love is the only thing that matters," della Torre remarked. "It has often been said before, it remains none the less true. A man is young just as long as he retains his capacity for falling in love. What does it matter if he loves successfully or unsuccessfully? It is the hope, the fears, the despairs, that count—the meetings and partings, the misunderstandings, the beautiful pretence that the most ephemeral of emotions will endure for ever."
"You don't think that love is lasting?"
Lily was smiling a little, but there was disappointment in her heart.
"The Blue Rose is the only one that never fades," said Giulio della Torre.
Lily found herself wondering very often just how much she liked him.
His intuition seemed to her to be very wonderful, and his tact unfailing. He never jarred upon her varying moods, and she knew, with inward compunction, that they varied often. She could hardly herself tell when it first become a thing of accepted implication between them, that he loved her. Divided between the conventionality that told her she should be shocked, the common-sense conviction that his passion would be as brief as it was likely to be fruitless, and the unavowed gratification that she derived from it, Lily, as usual, refused to envisage the direct question.
She continued passive.
Nicholas liked the Marchese, and meaning merely a mild facetiousness, referred to him when he was not present as "our friend Spaghetti."