'You see!' she cried, with the intonation of a laugh not far away. 'I took you by surprise, because I am right about it! What have you to say?'
He said nothing, but his lips hurt hers a little in the silence. She shivered slightly, for she had not yet dreamed that a kiss could hurt and yet be too short. The sound of Madame Bernard's voice came from the next room, still talking to the parrot. Angela laid her hand on Giovanni's gold-laced sleeve and nestled beside him, with her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
'I have always wanted to do this,' she said in a drowsy little voice, as if she wished she could go to sleep where she was. 'It is my place. When you are away in Africa, at night, under the stars, you will dream that I am just here, resting in my very own place.'
She felt his warm breath in her hair as he answered.
'I will not go; I will not leave you.'
'But you must,' she said, quickly straightening herself and looking into his face. 'I should not love you as I do, if I could bear to think of your staying here, to let men laugh at you, as you say they would!'
'It is not like resigning on the day after war is declared!' he retorted, trying to speak lightly.
'It is!' she cried, with a sort of eager anxiety in her voice. 'There is only a difference in the degree—and perhaps it is worse! If there were war, you would be one man in a hundred thousand, but now you will be one in ten or twenty, or as many as are to go. Think what it would be if you were the only man in Italy, the one, single, only officer who could certainly accomplish something very dangerous to help your country—and if you refused to do it!'
'There are hundreds of better men than I for the work,' objected Giovanni.
'I doubt it. Are there hundreds of engineer officers on the General Staff?'