‘When he made you cry?’ retorted Leone indignantly. ‘You might just as well say I mean well when——’
But at this point Maria closed the discussion abruptly by picking him up with a laugh and a kiss and carrying him off to bed. It was as much as she could do now, for he was very sturdy and heavy for his age.
CHAPTER VI
When Castiglione came on the following afternoon Maria was looking wonderfully well, and so like herself, as she had been within the first year of her marriage, that he could not help looking at her very hard. There was only the small patch of white in her dark hair near the left temple, which Castiglione could not remember; and there was the black frock. She always wore black or grey now, but when she was very young she had liked pretty colours.
Castiglione himself was in uniform, for he thought it possible that he might see Leone, and he would not have broken his promise to the boy for anything. He was not the man to put on his uniform with the idea of looking better in it than in a civilian’s clothes, still less had he any thought of recalling old memories to Maria by such theatrical means. Men who are hard hitters are rarely theatrical in small things, though some famous generals, like Napoleon, have been great dramatic artists.
In Italy the uniforms of the cavalry regiments do not differ as much as in some other countries, and but for the colour of the facings and a few smaller details Castiglione’s dress was enough like the uniform of the Piedmont Lancers to produce a much deeper impression on Maria than he could have easily understood. The man himself had changed little. He was a little broader perhaps, his strong features were a little more marked, his military moustache was heavier, but that was all. At thirty, or nearly that, he was much the same active, energetic, good-looking young officer he had been at two and twenty.
They instinctively took the places they had sat in during his first visit. The hour was the same, the light in the room was the same, too; but other things were not the same. Castiglione felt it as soon as he saw Maria’s face, and she knew it when she heard the sound of his voice. The ice-wall that had stood between them so long had melted away; the chasm that separated Maria even from that barrier was bridged. It would not be easy now to touch hands and part again for years.
The stern old monk’s words echoed faintly in Maria’s heart: to meet thus was a deadly risk, perhaps a mortal sin. But the voice was far away, and Maria was very happy and hopeful, and the old Capuchin had been a common and ignorant man who could not understand the pride and self-respect of a Roman lady, nor the generous honour of such a man as Baldassare del Castiglione.