He was smart as usual, but not in visiting costume.
"Why are you dressed like this?" said Regina, touching his sleeve. "There is such a crowd of people, and it's so hot. Don't go in! They haven't seen you, and I am just going!"
"Wait one moment," he returned, tranquilly. "Why are you going?"
"At least don't enter this way, Antonio!" she cried, excitedly.
"But why not?" he repeated, opening the glass door.
Regina remained on the terrace, looking at the gardener without seeing him. Her suspicion was monstrous folly! A guilty man would not act as at this moment Antonio had acted. Yet no! Immediately she reflected that if he were guilty he would naturally behave just as he had behaved—pretending not to understand, even if he did understand, what was passing in her soul. But no! Again, no! If he were guilty he would have pretended better. He would not have come in familiarly by the garden gate. He would not have allowed himself the liberty, knowing his wife here, in the other woman's house. Yet she was aware that the most astute delinquents pretend sometimes to forget, and commit imprudences just in order to mislead suspicion.
But what startled her at the moment was the perception that now she held Antonio not only guilty, but aware of her suspicion, and resolved to continue the deception.
She went back into the drawing-room, where the discussion of the foreigner's suicide was still going on. It seemed to her tiresome, provincial gossip.
Marianna gave Antonio tea, and while he nibbled a yellow biscuit with teeth even as a child's, he also gave his opinion of the tragedy. Madame bent forward to listen, and fanned herself with a little Japanese fan, which seemed made of polished glass. The rings on her tiny hands sparkled in the light, which grew ever fainter and rosier.