When the others sat down to cards Regina went into the bedroom which once had seemed to her a haunt of incubi. It was open to the balcony, and the moon illuminated the curtains, projecting a silver dazzle across the interior. The great bed was a white square in the centre of the room, corners of chairs and tables caught the light, a scent of pinks perfumed the silence and the peace of that great matrimonial chamber, nest of humdrum bourgeois felicity. Regina thought if Antonio had brought her to Rome on a night like this, and had introduced her into that room shining thus, wrapped in the dreams of mid-May, nothing would have happened that had happened.
She leaned from the balcony; pinks were at her feet; over a sweet heaven of velvety blue passed the moon distant and melancholy, distant and pure, like a sail lost in the immensity of the ocean of dream.
Naturally Regina's thoughts flew to the terrace on the shore of the Albano lake, where rose-leaves fell like butterflies on the iridescent mother-o'-pearl of the moonlit water.
What was Antonio doing? Was it possible that the monstrous dream which crushed her could have any reality? Under the infinite purity of the heavens could such wickedness be wrought on earth?
But when she had returned home, the incubus settled down on her again, victor once more in that strife which too often proved her the weaker.
She expected Antonio by the last train. He did not come, neither did he send an explanatory telegram. Regina waited till midnight, then went to bed, but passed an agitated night, perhaps because for the first time she was alone.
Very early she had Caterina brought to her. The baby, in her little night-dress, sat on the pillow and seemed uneasy at her father's absence.
"Papa?" she asked.
"Papa isn't here. He'll come very soon, very soon, very soon! Go to sleep. Lie down. Give me little foot—my little foot. That other one is Papa's? Very well, you can give it to him when he comes," said Regina, drawing the baby down. Caterina was in the habit of giving one foot to Mamma and the other to Papa. Regina took both the little feet, but Caterina wished to keep Papa's free. Then she touched the lace on Regina's night-dress with her rosy finger.