"What has all this to do with it? The world has no need to know our affairs. Chance!" she repeated, her face darkening as she remembered the "chance" in which she had so childishly believed, while instinct had warned her of fiction, fiction clever but thin, like the invention in a novelette.
"What do you mean?" she went on, reassailed by a stifling wave of rage and suspicion. "The world is malicious just because every day, every hour, these strange chances are happening. You know the background of life better than I do. Shame upon shame! How often have you not yourself pointed out to me smart young men who are living on their mistresses?"
Antonio made no answer, and she continued—
"So I said to myself, 'The appearance itself that we are not living merely on our fixed income, the excuse that you play, and have capital at your disposal in result of a game where, as at every game, one sometimes wins but sometimes loses, or the excuse that you are that woman's agent—confidential servant—all that has given rise to suspicion.' What do you expect?" she repeated for the third time. "The world is malicious. We—you—are seen for ever going to that house. Everything is seen, commented on, suspected. Your own relations—do you think your own relations have no doubts, make no allusions? Why, a few days ago Claretta——"
Having reached this point Regina became alarmed and silent. She felt herself saying things untrue, giving form to the phantasms of her suspicions. She had no wish to deceive. She wanted the truth. Was she to seek it with lies? No; the truth must be sought with truth. This was her desire, but she was unequal to achieving it. As during their nocturnal walk along the Po, that evening of Antonio's arrival, so now she felt a veil suspended between them. They saw, but could not touch each other—so near were they, yet so far, separated by the black veil of lies. Why continue this conversation woven of deceits? Words, words! Cold, vain, vulgar words! The truth was in silence, or at least in those words which the lying lips were unable to shape. Regina reflected—
"If I dare not speak my real thought, I who have nothing shameful to conceal, how can he speak his? It is useless to insist. He will not confess. None the less, we may come to an understanding. I will say to him, 'Let us go back to living modestly as we did at first. Let us break off all relation with that woman, and it will shut people's mouths.' He will understand. He will return to me purified by my silent pardon, by my delicacy. And it will be all over. How is it I never had this happy thought before?"
But she had no sooner formulated the "happy thought" than it seemed to her just one of her usual romantic ideas—a phantasy on a pleasant walk at sundown, along the paths of a spring landscape. Life was a different matter! Reality, naked and ugly, but at least sincere, was a different matter!—like an ugly woman who makes no effort to deceive any one. Away, away with every veil! away with each stained garment! They must listen to each other; they must rend every disguise, even if it were generous and of the ideal.
While she was hurriedly weighing these thoughts in her mind, Antonio interrupted—
"And you knew all this and said nothing? Why did you say nothing? I can't make it out. Certain things have become clear—your ill-humour, your hints and insinuations, your obstinacy in not coming to Albano. But I cannot comprehend your silence. Ah! how hideous all this is! Hideous! Hideous! Certainly the world is malicious; its malice would be monstrous if it weren't ridiculous! We needn't pay attention to it! You are right; in a city like Rome, where anything seems possible, and nobody believes what is said——"
"No, we must pay attention to it," said Regina; "just because in a city like Rome anything seems possible. It mayn't matter so much to me, but suppose the calumny should reach the ears of my mother, down there in that corner of a province, where the smallest things seem gigantic! My mother has had great sorrows, but none of them could equal this."