Gianluca leaned back suddenly in his seat, overcome with a sort of shame at the thought that Taquisara had spoken to her for him, and that he himself could find nothing to say. His face pale and red, and his hands trembled.
"I like your friend," said Veronica, quietly, wondering whether he felt ill.
"Yes—I am glad," answered Gianluca. "He is a true friend, a good friend. If you knew him as well as I do, you would like him still better."
Veronica thought this probable, but refrained from saying so, and remained silent. Bianca was touching gentle chords at the piano. Now and then a few words, sung in deep, soft notes, sad as the south wind, floated through the room, and then she and Ghisleri talked about the song, paying no attention whatever to the pair on the sofa.
Gianluca sighed and caught his breath. Veronica glanced quickly at him, and then looked again at the top of Ghisleri's head, as the latter bent down. She had not thought that she had expected so much of the meeting. She certainly had not the slightest personal feeling for the man beside her. And yet, somehow, she was dismally disappointed. If this was the man who was dying of love, she infinitely preferred Bosio Macomer. Gianluca was evidently in bad health. He looked as though he might be in a decline, and he was clearly very nervous and ill at ease. But he did not speak at all as she supposed that a man would who was deeply in love. Taquisara had spoken far better. He had seemed so much in earnest that if he had suddenly substituted himself for Gianluca as the subject of his phrases, Veronica could have believed him easily enough.
"Then I may hope that you will forgive me for coming here, thinking that
I might meet you?" said the young man, with a question in his voice.
"Why should you not come?" asked Veronica, not unkindly, but with the least possible inflexion of impatience.
"There can certainly be no reason, if you are not offended," he answered. "But if I thought that I had offended you, by coming, I should never forgive myself."
"But I should certainly forgive you, if you offended me unintentionally. Besides, there is no reason in the world why you should not come here to see Bianca whenever you like, if she will receive you. She goes out very little. She is glad to see people."
He was a man born to throw away opportunities, an older woman would have thought; but Veronica grew impatient at his insistence upon useless things, and his thin, nervous hands irritated her vaguely as, looking down, or in front of her, she could not help seeing them clasped upon his knee. Once, too, she was aware that Bianca leaned to one side and looked towards her, round the side of the sheet of music, as though to see how matters were progressing. Veronica began to feel that she was in a ridiculous position. The hesitation and pauses and silences had made the brief conversation already last nearly a quarter of an hour. In that time Taquisara had said all he had to say. Veronica made a little movement, a very slight indication that she would presently leave her seat. Gianluca started and suddenly gazed earnestly into her face, so that she turned her head and met his eyes.