It would not last long. Castiglione had said that he had only a fortnight’s leave, and with the most moderate desire to avoid him, she need not meet him more than two or three times while he was in Rome. To refuse to receive him once would perhaps look to him like fear or weakness, and she believed that she was strong and brave; yet she did not wish to see him alone, not because she was afraid of him, but because to be alone with him a few moments, even as she had been yesterday afternoon, brought the past too near, and it hurt her.
Giuliana often lunched with her friend, and was far from suspecting that she had been asked for a special reason to-day. The two talked of indifferent matters, much as usual, and presently went into the drawing-room. It was warm already, and the blinds were closed to keep out the blazing sunlight and the reflection from the white street. The friends sat near each other, exchanging a few words now and then, and both were preoccupied, which hindered each from noticing that the other was so.
Leone knelt on a chair at the window looking down into the street between the slits of the green blinds.
‘Summer is coming!’ he suddenly called out, turning to look at his mother.
‘Yes,’ she answered, smiling at him merely because he spoke. ‘It will come soon.’
‘But do you know why? There are two bersaglieri in linen trousers.’
‘Yes, dear. They have probably been drilling.’
‘No,’ answered the small boy. ‘They have no knapsacks and no rifles, and they are not dusty. It is because summer is coming that they wear linen trousers. I can’t see them any more. They walk so fast, you know. When shall I be a bersagliere, mama?’
‘Would you not rather be a sailor?’ asked Giuliana.
‘Oh, no!’ Leone laughed. ‘A sailor? To sit inside an iron box and shoot off guns at other iron boxes? That’s not fighting! But the bersaglieri, they charge the enemy and kill them with their bayonets. And sometimes they are killed themselves. But that doesn’t matter, for they have had the glory!’