"Even my dress gets stained in this horrible house!"
Antonio listened, but seemed not to understand. He found a bottle of benzine, and helped Regina to clean her dress, then put everything back in its place, threw his arm round her waist, and made her run with him up the stair, careless of her stumbles, deaf to all protests and reproaches.
Thus they entered the garden, and Regina recovered her calm. The sinking sun gilded half the expanse, leaving the rest in deep shadow. The wind passed high up over the tops of the laurels, which were garlanded with white roses. From time to time a rain of rose-leaves, of lime-blossom, of wistaria, circled down through the hot air and fell on the paths. Regina and her husband sat in a green corner close to a hermes, on which was an archaic head. Black, hard, epicene, it had a complacent and sarcastic smile.
"He thinks us a pair of lovers," said Regina, remarking the expression. "No, my dear fellow, I assure you we are enemies!"
"And why?" asked Antonio, coldly.
Then a recollection shot through Regina's mind.
"Do you remember that day in the woods, two years ago, when you—had come for me? There were so many blue butterflies, just like these wistaria blossoms——"
She laughed meaningly. Did he remember? And the remembrance of that hour of pleasure passed in the mystery of the damp, hot woods the day after his coming to Regina's home, after her flight and their reconciliation, seemed to reawaken him to passion.
The childish gaiety which had animated him a few minutes before passed into a nervous tenderness, and this time it was he who sought the lips of his wife in a kiss, which reminded her of his kisses then.