Gianluca sighed. Matters were at a deadlock, and Veronica had announced her intention of going to Muro alone, before long. Once established there, she might stay in the mountains until the following autumn, unapproachable in her maiden solitude, as she had told Taquisara. Gianluca might knock at her gate, there, but he would certainly not be admitted.
"You despise me," he said to his friend. "You think me weak and helpless, and you fancy that if you were in my place you could do better. But I do not believe you could."
"No," replied the other. "I do not believe so, either. And I do not at all despise you. You have only one chance—to make her love you. No man is to be despised because a woman does not love him. It is not his fault."
"I feel as though it were," said Gianluca. "I am sure that if I could change, if I could make myself different in some way—but that is absurd, of course."
"One cannot suddenly become some one else." For himself, without vanity, Taquisara was probably glad of the fact, but he was sincerely sorry for his friend. "You might write to her," he suggested.
"Love-letters—to Donna Veronica?" Gianluca smiled incredulously. "You do not know her!"
"I know her a little," replied Taquisara. "All women like to receive letters from men who love them, if they are well expressed and sincere."
"How horribly practical you are sometimes!" exclaimed the younger man, unaccountably irritated at his friend's generalizations.
Taquisara laughed and knocked the ashes from his long black cigar.
"You came to me for advice, not for sentiment," he observed presently. "Perhaps I am a bad adviser, but that is the worst you can say of me. I daresay I do not understand women. I have known a few pretty well, but that is all. I am not a lady killer, and I certainly never wished to marry. You must not expect much of me—but what little there is to expect will be practical. Perhaps Ghisleri could advise you better than I. He is a queer fellow. If he ever cuts his throat, he will not die of it—his heart and his head will go on living separately, just as they do now."