“No, it is not for us,” she repeated. “Our roots are not here: how can we grow? But it is curious how it catches us all, and how it is typical of desire fulfilled. What does one ever really attain, really possess? Things are too great or too unresponsive, and always too mysterious. Even a little gem that you can hold in your hand and never let escape: how much is it yours—that strange indifferent fire? There is no possession. Instead of getting something else we lose something of ourselves. After all, people like Achille down there are happiest, who live their moment so intensely that they lose themselves all at once instead of by slow shreds and patches. The moment is everything. After that——” She put her hand to her cheek with a motion of weariness. Then she suddenly looked at Martin and laughed. “Do you see that sun? I presume the police have already been notified of my disappearance! I must beg your pardon for having given you such a day of it, and ask you to take me down.”
She sprang to her feet and Martin followed, reluctantly.
“I suppose I shall wake up,” he said, as they descended the winding steps, “and find that you were a dream. When I feel as I do, that I have known you all my life, and then reflect that twelve hours ago I had never set eyes on you—that even now I know no more about you than that you have a tower in Posilipo—I am inclined to doubt the so-called realities of existence.”
Again she laughed.
“Why? The actual matter of prolonged passions has occupied less time! I don’t see what more I could possibly tell you. The rest would be merely frills. But people waste so much time in these things. Don’t you think so? They miss so many chances, waiting for each other to begin and manœuvring each other to the proper point. That is why I came with you this morning—because you lost no time. Think how different it would have been if you had not waylaid me so unpardonably!”
Martin did think so. The consciousness of it suddenly overwhelmed him as they came out into the deserted square and crossed to the Via Santa Maria. He would not even have looked back, but for his companion.
“See!” she cried.
The dome of the baptistery, the roof of the cathedral, the top of the tower where they had been, were alight with a delicate rose glow which contrasted extraordinarily with the cold white of the lower shadow. The spectacle was to Martin symbolic and revealing. He saw as if apart from himself the romance of his day. Could it really have been he to whom this adventure had fallen? He glanced furtively at his companion. Was she the intimate stranger with whom he had been? It pleased him that he had known herself before knowing things about her. There would be so much more significance in making last the steps of acquaintance which usually come first. But she looked weary, and a thousand uncertainties, a thousand concerns, assailed him. He could not find courage to say the things which rose to his lips. His thoughts, however, wove themselves into a tissue of dreams.
So they went silently down the crooked street which at last left them on the Lungarno Regio. Martin hardly knew where he was. Through the gateway between the houses where the Arno wound out to the plain the splendour of sunset streamed into the city, touching the dusty façades with a fairy glamour, filling the sandy river bed with undreamed secrets of colour, transmuting the parcelled water into purple and gold. The quay where Martin had that morning discovered two persons was crowded with carriages and pedestrians enjoying the cool of the day. The theatrical vivacity of the people, their unaccustomed faces, their foreign speech, gave a new poignancy to his mood of exaltation.
One of the carriages in the slow progress caused some confusion by driving out of line. Martin noticed the handsome horses, the correct footman, the old lady with a black parasol. She eyed him narrowly as the landau drove up to the curb. He called the attention of his companion, who was looking toward the river.