Simply to hear her speak, and almost timidly, Stelio said:
"Shall you remain some time longer in Venice?"
He had pondered on the first words he should say to her, but was dissatisfied with whatever rose to his lips, for all phrases seemed too vivid, insidious, full of ambiguous significance, capable of infinite changes and transformations, like the unknown seed from which may spring a thousand roots. And it seemed to him that Perdita could not hear one of those phrases without feeling that a shadow darkened her love.
After he had spoken those simple, conventional words, he reflected that even that question might suggest an infinity of hope and eagerness.
"I must leave Venice to-morrow," Donatella replied. "I ought not to be here even now."
Her voice, so clear and powerful in the heights of song, was low and sober, as if suffused with a slight opacity, suggesting the image of the most precious metal wrapped in the most delicate velvet. Her brief reply indicated that there was a place of suffering to which she must return, where she must undergo some familiar torture. Like iron tempered with tears, a strong though sorrowful will shone through the veil of her youthful beauty.
"To-morrow!" Stelio exclaimed, not seeking to hide his sincere regret. "Have you heard, Signora?"
"I know," the actress replied, gently taking Donatella's hand. "I am filled with regret to see her go. But she cannot remain away longer from her father. Perhaps you do not yet know"—
"What?" asked Stelio quickly. "Is he ill? Is it true, then, that Lorenzo Arvale is ill?"
"No, he is only fatigued," said La Foscarina, touching her forehead with a gesture perhaps involuntary but which revealed to Stelio the horrible menace hanging over the genius of the artist who had seemed as fertile and indefatigable as one of the old masters—a Della Robbia or a Verrocchio.