"Wait one minute! Give me a kiss! We hardly ever see each other!"
He took her in his arms and kissed her, hugging her like a child. She kissed his smooth brow, his hair, and, feeling him all her own, so loving, so young, so handsome, so trusting, her heart throbbed with a tenderness that was almost pain. Thus for several minutes they remained embraced, in the silence, in the luminous penumbra of the warm, blue room.
Outside the street was becoming animated; but the noises vibrated softly, as if blended in the deep serenity of the air.
"I feel as if we were lying in a wood," said Antonio. "I'm still half asleep, and I'd like to sleep on like this to the end of time."
"It's the spring!" said Regina. "I also see the wood, and through the wood the river, and, oh, so many flowers!"
"Are you going to the Pincio to-day?"
"No; I'm going to see Gabrie. She has been three days in bed, poor child."
Antonio made no remark. He did not require his wife to account for her time, just as she did not demand it of him.
Regina wanted to go and see her mother in June, and he asked, suddenly, "When is the exam.?"