"Why did you do that?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Shrug."
"Did I shrug? I did so unconsciously. Perhaps I was thinking of O'Mally and his flock of tourists."
"Doesn't it annoy you?"
"Not in the least. It has been a fine comedy. I believe he is the most accomplished prevaricator I ever met. He remembers the lie of yesterday and keeps adding to it. I don't see how he manages to do it. He is better than Pietro. Pietro used to bring them into the house." She gathered up a handful of the roses and pressed them against her face, breathing deeply.
Hillard trembled. She was so beautiful; the glow of the roses on her cheeks and throat, the sun in her hair, and the shadows in her eyes. To smother the rush of words which were gathering at his lips, he raised his cup and drank. Ten days! It was something. But the battle was wearing; the ceaseless struggle not to speak from his full heart was weakening him. Yet he knew that to speak was to banish the dream, himself to be banished with it.
"If I were a poet, which I am not—" He paused irresolutely.
"You would extemporize on the beauty of the perspective," she supplemented. "How the Duomo shines! And the towers, and the Arno—"
"I was thinking of your hair," he interrupted. "I have never seen anything quite like it. It isn't a wig, is it?" jestingly.