"No, no!" she cried, terrified lest the summons should bring her mother-in-law; "I'll get up at once! I'm anxious to write home."
"We'll go out the moment the rain stops," said Antonio. "If you don't mind we'll take Gaspare with us. He knows all about archæology. We'll go to the Forum."
"To the Forum!" she echoed, her eyes sparkling with revival of joy.
"Yes, my dear—to the Forum. Think of that! To the Forum! Have you realised where you are?"
She smiled at him without answering. He had changed his costume, was wearing a shining collar, a beautiful green tie, had curled his moustache. He was fresh, fragrant, very handsome. Light had come in with him, love, joy. Regina pulled him down to her, kissed his hair, which she said smelt of "burnt flowers," pretended to whisper something in his ear, and made instead a childish shout. He jumped in feigned terror, threatened her and shook her. They laughed, they played, they forgot everything but their own felicity.
"Where have you awaked, levrottin?" (leveret), he asked, using one of the pretty pet names he had learned in her country, where he had been for three months on a Royal Commission; "where are you? This time yesterday we were at Parma; to-day we are here. Think, what a distance! And three months ago we didn't so much as know each other! Do you remember the first day we made friends on the river-bank? And that great crimson sun behind the woods? The Master kept looking at us and smiling; he knew we'd have to get married!"
"'Here is the Signor Antonio Venutelli, junior clerk at the Treasury, and here is the noble Signorina Regina Tagliamari,'" continued Antonio, imitating the nasal voice of the school-master who had arranged their introduction; "'she is a real queen of goodness and of genius, fit to reign in the Eternal City, in unequalled Rome.'"
"Poor old man!" said Regina, more gravely. "Yes, we certainly owe our meeting to him."
"And what do you suppose they'd say in your home, now? They'd say, 'Regina is in Rome, and she's still in bed, the little sluggard, and she hasn't even been to Mass, the little heathen! Fancy being in Rome and not going to Mass!'"
"But look here!" she began, clapping her hands and imitating her husband's mock-heroic tone. However she was no longer merry. A sweet vision had melted her heart. She saw her mother—her dear, delicate mother, her pretty sister, her youngest brother, her darling, all starting for the nine o'clock Mass. The house on the river-bank was deserted. It stood among poplar-trees veiled in mist, like a fancy house in the background of a stage picture. Inside a fire burned on the great hearth, the black cat sat contemplating the flames, the Baratta painting was illuminated with grey and rosy tints which gave it a suggestive relief. The sound of a bell, singularly pure in tone, was dying on the still air in metallic vibrations; the northern landscape, with the great river winding along like an immense blue vein in the whiteness of that snowy plain, was spread out under the vaporous heaven. Silence—mysterious immensity—the mist of dream!