He intoxicated her with words of honied sweetness; he was more fervent than herself; he told her of his visions in the night of snow and of his despairing desire and some plausible story of the roses and a thousand other lyric fancies. He judged her to be on the point of yielding—he saw her eyes swim in melting languor, and on her plaintive mouth that nameless contraction which seems like an instinctive dissimulation of the physical desire to kiss; he looked at her hands, so delicate and yet so strong, the hands of an archangel, and saw them trembling like the strings of an instrument expressing all the anguish of her soul. 'If, to-day, I could succeed in stealing even the most fleeting kiss from her,' he thought, 'I should find myself considerably nearer the goal of my desires.'
But, conscious of her peril, she rose hastily with an apology and, ringing the bell, ordered tea and sent to ask Miss Dorothy to bring Delfina to the drawing-room.
'It is better so,' she said, turning to Andrea with the traces of her agitation still visible in her face; 'forgive me!'
And from that day she avoided receiving him except on Tuesday and Saturday when she was at home to every one.
Nevertheless, she allowed Andrea to conduct her on long peregrinations through the Rome of the Emperors and the Rome of the Popes, through the villas, the museums, the churches, the ruins. Where Elena Muti had passed, there Maria Ferrès passed also. Often enough, the sights they visited suggested to the poet the same eloquent effusions which Elena had once heard. Often enough, some recollection carried him away suddenly from the present and disturbed him strangely.
'What are you thinking of at this moment?' Donna Maria would ask him, looking him deep in the eyes with a shade of suspicion.
'Of you—always of you!' he answered. 'I am sometimes seized with curiosity to look into my own soul to see if there remains one tiny particle that does not belong to you, one smallest corner still closed to your light It is an exploration made for you, as you cannot make it for yourself. I may say with truth, Maria, that I have nothing more to give you. You have absolute dominion over me. Never, I think, in spirit has one human being possessed another so entirely. If my lips were to meet yours my whole life would be absorbed in yours—I believe I should die of it.'
She had full faith in his words, for his voice lent them the fire of truth.
One day, they were in the Belvedere of the Villa Medici and were watching the gold of the sun fade slowly from the sky while the Villa Borghese, still bare and leafless, sank gently into a violet mist. Touched with sudden melancholy she said:
'Who knows how many times you have come here to feel yourself beloved?'