‘I was right to telephone last night, was I not?’ he asked when they were seated.
‘Yes, quite right. But Teresa has always seemed to be a good friend. She may have been annoyed because she had made such a stupid mistake, but I really don’t think she will gossip about us.’
‘I hope not, though I don’t trust her.’
After this there was a little silence, for he would not make conversation; and while he waited for Maria to speak, his eyes were satisfied, and his heart beat quietly and happily because he was near her. He did not feel the heavy, passionate pulse that used to throb in his neck when he came near her, nor the dryness in his throat, with the strange, cool quivering of his own lips. He was simply and quietly happy, and he trusted himself and her.
‘You have come for your answer,’ she said, after a long time. ‘It’s of no use to pretend that we have anything else to talk of. We will be honest with each other. There is no one to hear what we say, and we have nothing to say now of which we need be ashamed before God.’
Castiglione silently bent his head in assent and waited.
‘The forgiveness you asked of me yesterday, I should have asked of you, too,’ Maria went on, but her eyes looked down. ‘I ask it now, before I say anything more.’
‘I don’t understand,’ answered the man. ‘How can I have anything to forgive?’
‘Balduccio, do you remember the hard words I said to you under the ilex-trees when we parted?’