But, as she said it, kind fate made her turn her face again up towards his. He looked, and laughed.
“You’ve remembered one thing, haven’t you, darling? We’ll read up about Minerva some day. People do forget their classics.”
“I know those gods and goddesses always seemed very silly,” she returned, encouraged. “They never lived, and the things couldn’t have happened, so why should we think about them?”
Why indeed? And, with the thought, visions of beautiful myths floated up before his eyes, and he wondered whether the time would come when he could as easily dismiss them. He did not as yet understand that they had never yet touched her at all, so that it was no question of dismissal. And she had her eyes still turned to his.
“You like real history better? Well, let’s go back to Saint Francis; he’s real enough. Or—” and his voice changed, for love, even a little love, will show people truths, if only they will let it; and for the first, the very first time in his life, Wilbraham wondered whether he were indeed a prig—“or never mind any of them, dear, we’ll only think about to-day.”
“Yes,” she said happily, drawing a little closer to him as his hand sought hers, “yes, that is nicer.”
And as they strolled round the piazza, and looked—with his eyes—at the pictures which lived all round them, at shadowy eaves, flowers in dark windows, bits of carving, children in bright rags, women carrying pitchers; mules, vegetables, big umbrellas, gourds, maize, tomatoes, shade, sun, he said again and again to himself, how sweet she was, and how content a man should be with such a wife.
They were standing at last by an open washing place at the side of the street, where a group of women thumped and wrung, much to Sylvia’s distress—for it seemed to her a destructive way of washing clothes—when Teresa and Miss Sandiland came round a corner.
“Oh!” murmured Miss Sandiland, catching sight of them, and slackening her steps significantly.
But the young marchesa marched on. When she had not Sylvia before her, unacknowledged uneasiness fretted her; she was sure that by a look she could judge how the two were getting on, and whether Sylvia had, as Mrs Maxwell would have said, yet put her foot in it.