"I understand," she said to Ghisleri; "let them alone. It is better, so long as only you and I see it."
Down by the steps, Veronica stood very still, looking out over the blue water, and Taquisara was beside her. She waited for him to speak again, sure that he had not said all.
"Such things seem improbable in these days," he said quietly. "You say that it is dreadful. It is. I have seen it, and have been with him day after day. I am not very sensitive, as a rule, but I have had a strange impression which I shall never forget. Gianluca and I met when we were serving our time as volunteers. He was unlike the rest of us, even then. That was why we became friends—because he was unlike me, I suppose."
"Unlike—in what way?" asked Veronica, still looking at the sea.
"It is hard to explain. He is a man of ideals, a religious man, a good man." Taquisara smiled gravely. "That was enough to make him quite different from us all, was it not?"
"I do not know," said the young girl. "Are all men bad, as a rule?"
"Perhaps," answered the Sicilian, shortly. "At all events, Gianluca was not. One saw that all the little that was bad in his life was only a jest, while all the much that was good was real and true."
"You are indeed his friend," said Veronica, softly.
She was struck by the beauty of what the man had said so plainly and unaffectedly.
"Yes, I am his friend," replied Taquisara. "One of his friends, say,—for he has many. I am his friend as you are the friend of Donna Bianca. You understand that, do you not? And you understand that there is nothing you would not do for a friend? Not out of mere obligation, because your friend has done much for you, but just for friendship—love, if you choose to call it so. I have heard people speak eloquently of friendship—so have you perhaps. And we both understand what it means, though many do not. That is why I speak as I do, and if I do not speak well, you must forgive me, and feel the meaning I cannot express to your ears. Gianluca loves you, Donna Veronica, as men very rarely love women, so immensely, so strongly, that his love is burning up his life in him—and it has all been kept from you for some reason or other, while your relations are doing their best to make you marry Bosio Macomer, who can no more be compared with Gianluca della Spina than—"