"What is it? What is it? Tell me—only tell me, Regina, Regina!" he urged, tenderly and anxiously.
"It has nothing to do with you," she said, hiding her face on his breast, "it's all my own fault. I don't know why, but I can't conquer the past—the homesickness—and I'm afraid of the future."
He also felt a mysterious fear.
"Why are you afraid of the future?"
"Because—I suppose because we are poor. Rome is so horrid for the poor."
"But, Regina, we aren't poor!" he exclaimed with increasing alarm, "and, anyhow, don't we love each other?"
"To love—to vegetate—it's not enough—not enough," she murmured.
"But you knew all about it, Regina!"
"I knew and I know. I'm furious with myself that I can't overcome my aversion to this bourgeois life."
"But after all—down there at your home—what sort of life were you leading?"