"You love me, do you not? I am the only aim of your existence; you see only me in your future."
With an unexpected smile, which raised her long eyelashes, she said: "Yes, you know it."
He added once more in a low voice, his face bowed down: "You know my malady."
She seemed to have guessed her lover's thought. As if in confidence, in a whispering voice which seemed to draw closer the circle in which they breathed and palpitated together, she asked, "What can I do to cure you?"
They were silent, clasped in each other's arms. But in the silence their two souls dwelt and decided upon the same thing.
"Come with me," he cried, at length. "Let us go to some unknown country; let us stay there all Spring, all Summer, as long as we can—that will cure me."
Without hesitation she replied: "I am ready. I belong to you."
They disengaged themselves, comforted. The hour of departure had come; they strapped the last valise. Hippolyte gathered all her flowers, already withered in the glasses: the violets of the Villa Cesarini, the cyclamens, the anemones, and the periwinkles of the Chigi Park, the simple roses of the Castel-Gandolfo, a branch of an almond-tree gathered in the neighborhood of Diana's Baths, on their way home from the Emissary. These flowers could have told all their idylls. Oh, the frolicsome course in the park, in descending a steep incline, on the dry leaves in which their feet sank to the ankles! She shouted and laughed, pricked on the legs by the sharp nettles through the fine stockings: and then, before her, George beat down the sharp stems with blows of his cane, so that she could trample upon them without danger. Very green and innumerable nettles adorned the Diana's Baths, the mysterious cave in which favorable echoes were transformed into the music of slowly dropping water. And, from the depths of the humid shadow, they saw the country all covered with almond-trees and silver-and-pink peach trees, infinitely delightful beneath the light-green pallor of the limpid waters. So many flowers, so many souvenirs!
"See," she said, showing George a ticket, "it is the ticket for Segni-Paliano! I shall keep it."
Pancrazio knocked at the door. He brought George the receipted bill. In the emotion produced by the signor's generosity, he was all confused in his expressions of thanks and good wishes. Finally, he drew two visiting-cards from his pocket, and offered them to the signor and signora to recall to them his humble name, begging to be excused for his boldness.