"Expecting to find us together, of course!" Aurora threw up her head a little disdainfully, for Marcello had offended her.
"He is generally somewhere near you, poor boy," answered Corbario in a tone of pity.
"Why do you say 'poor boy' in that tone? Do you think he is so much to be pitied?"
"A little, certainly." Corbario smiled.
"I don't see why."
"Women never do, when a man is in love!"
"Women"—the flattery was subtle and Aurora's face cleared. Corbario was a man of the world, without doubt, and he had called her a woman, in a most natural way, as if she had been at least twenty years old. It did not occur to her to ask herself whether Folco had any object in wishing to please her just then, but she knew well enough that he did wish to do so. Even a girl's instinct is unerring in that; and Corbario further pleased her by not pursuing the subject, for what he had said seemed all the more spontaneous because it led to nothing.
"If Marcello is not in the cottage," he observed, as they came near, "he must have gone off for a walk after he left you. Did you not see which way he turned?"
"How could I from the place where I stood?" asked Aurora in reply. "As soon as he had turned behind the bank it was impossible to say which way he had gone."
"Of course," assented Folco. "I understand that."