“You arrived this afternoon?” she conjectured.
“By the five-twenty-five from Bergamo,” said he.
“A very convenient train,” she remarked; and then, in the pleasantest manner, whereby the unusual mode of valediction was carried off, “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” responded Peter, and accomplished his fourth bow.
She moved away from the river, up the smooth lawns, between the trees, towards Castel Ventirose, a flitting whiteness amid the surrounding green.
Peter stood still, looking after her.
But when she was out of sight, he sank back upon his rustic bench, like a man exhausted, and breathed a prodigious sigh. He was absurdly pale. All the same, clenching his fists, and softly pounding the table with them, he muttered exultantly, between his teeth, “What luck! What incredible luck! It's she—it's she, as I 'm a heathen. Oh, what supernatural luck!”
III
Old Marietta—the bravest of small figures, in her neat black-and-white peasant dress, with her silver ornaments, and her red silk coif and apron—came for the coffee things.