"May I?" Guido enquired. "Will you let me ask her to marry me, when I think that the time has come?"
"Certainly! That is—" The Countess believed that she ought to hesitate. "After all, we have only known you a fortnight. That is not long. Is it?"
"No. But, on the other hand, you had never seen me when you and my aunt agreed that your daughter and I should be married."
"How did you know that we had talked about it?"
"It was rather evident," Guido answered, with a smile.
The artlessness which is often a charm in a young girl looks terribly like foolishness if it lasts till a woman is forty. Yet in old age it may seem charming again, as if second childhood brought with it a second innocence.
Guido was an Italian only by his mother, and from his father he inherited the profoundly complicated character of races that had ruled the world for a thousand years or more, and not always either wisely or justly. Under his indifference and quiet dislike of all action, as well as of most emotions, he had always felt the conflicting instincts towards good and evil, and the contempt of consequences bordering on folly, if not upon real insanity, which had brought about the decline and fall of his father's kingdom. The perfect simplicity of the real Italian character when in a state of equilibrium always amused him, and often pleased him, and he had a genuine admiration for the splendidly violent contrasts which it develops when roused by passion. He could read it like an open book, and predict what it would do in almost any circumstances.
For the first time in his life, he felt something of its directness in himself, moving to a definite aim through the maze of useless complications, hesitations, and turns and returns of thought with which he was familiar in his own character. He smiled at the idea that he might end by resembling Lamberti, with whom to think was to feel, and to feel was to act. Were there two selves in him, of which the one was in love, and the other was not? That was an amusing theory, and a fortnight ago it would have been pleasant to sit in his room at night, among his Dürers, his Rembrandts, and his pictures, with an old book on his knee, dreaming about his two conflicting individualities. But somehow dreaming had lost its charm of late. He thought only of one question, and asked only one of the future. Was Cecilia Palladio's friendship about to turn into anything that could be called love, or not? His intention warned him that if the change had come she herself was not conscious of it. He was authorised to ask her, now that the Countess had spoken—formally authorised, but he was quite sure that if he had believed that she already loved him, he would not have waited for any such permission. His father's blood resented the restraint of all ordinary conventions, and in the most profound inaction he had always morally and inwardly reserved the right to do what he pleased, if he should ever care to do anything at all.
He was just going to dress for dinner that evening when Lamberti came in, a little more sunburned than usual, but thinner, and very restless in his manner. Guido explained that he was going to dine with the Countess Fortiguerra. He offered to telephone for permission to bring Lamberti with him.
"Do you know them well enough for that already?" Lamberti asked.