“Would n't his telling her have been equivalent to a declaration of love?” questioned he, looking at the signet-ring on the little finger of his left hand.
“A declaration of love?” She considered for a moment. “Yes, I suppose in a way it would,” she acknowledged. “But even so?” she asked, after another moment of consideration. “Why should he not have made her a declaration of love? He was in love with her, wasn't he?”
The point of frank interrogation in her eyes showed clearly, showed cruelly, how detached, how impersonal, her interest was.
“Frantically,” said Peter. For caution's sake, he kept HIS eyes on the golden-hazy peaks of Monte Sfionto. “He had been in love with her, in a fashion, of course, from the beginning. But after he met her, he fell in love with her anew. His mind, his imagination, had been in love with its conception of her. But now he, the man, loved her, the woman herself, frantically, with just a downright common human love. There were circumstances, however, which made it impossible for him to tell her so.”
“What circumstances?” There was the same frank look of interrogation. “Do you mean that she was married?”
“No, not that. By the mercy of heaven,” he pronounced, with energy, “she was a widow.”
The Duchessa broke into an amused laugh.
“Permit me to admire your piety,” she said.
And Peter, as his somewhat outrageous ejaculation came back to him, laughed vaguely too.
“But then—?” she went on. “What else? By the mercy of heaven, she was a widow. What other circumstance could have tied his tongue?”