"To-morrow we will resume our long walks; we will spend all morning on the beach. Shall we? And now come into the loggia."
She drew him toward her with a tender gesture.
"See how beautiful the evening is! Smell how the rocks embalm the air!"
She breathed in the briny odor, trembling and clasping him close.
"We have everything to make us happy, and you—how you will regret these days when they are gone! Time flies. It will be soon three months that we are here."
"Do you already think of leaving me?" he asked, uneasy, suspicious.
She wanted to reassure him.
"No, no," she replied; "not yet. But the prolongation of my absence becomes difficult on account of my mother. I received only to-day a letter recalling me. You know she needs me. When I am not at home all goes wrong."
"Then you must soon return to Rome?"
"No. I shall have to find another pretext. You know that my mother believes I am here in company with an old girl friend of mine. My sister has helped me, and still helps me, in rendering this fiction probable; and, besides, my mother knows that I need sea-baths, and that, last year, I was ill from not having taken them. Do you remember? I spent the summer at Caronno, at my sister's. What a horrible summer!"