He fiddled with his long, frosted glass. “I’m sorry, I thought it would interest you. It is so lovely here. I’ve been looking forward so much to showing you around, I guess I got carried away.”
“Do you like it better than Stresa?”
He seemed undecided. “It’s different. Stresa was lovely, too, wasn’t it?”
She moved a little forward on her stool. Her eyes became for a moment very animated. “Do you remember the little albergo at Arolo?” she asked. “You couldn’t speak a word of Italian—and the fun we had. Do you remember Anita?”
He nodded. “The innkeeper’s daughter? I always think of something rude when I say that. She called me poverino because the sun blistered my nose.” He laughed. “I guess we had a swell time there. She used to chatter away to me in the early morning when you were still asleep, and I didn’t know what she was talking about. You know, I must really learn Italian before we go there again.”
“Do you think we’ll ever go there again?” she asked, her face becoming sad. “It seems such a long way off.”
“Of course we’ll go there again. Don’t you want to swim in the lake once more? Do you remember the time when that old snake fell out of a tree and scared you? We were just going in and you absolutely refused to swim that day.”
She shivered. “I hate snakes,” she said. “You know I hate snakes.”
“I was only teasing,” he said quickly; “I hate things like that too, but I’m glad I came here. There is something solid and primitive about this place that Italy hasn’t got. Italy is ice-cake buildings and post-card skies. Here you feel the pulse of the people. The streets have run with blood and the buildings still echo with the groans of the oppressed. Look at it, look at the sea, the flowers, the people. Don’t you think they are more solid, more real than Italy?”
She said: “Yes, everything now is more real and more solid. The touch of fairyland has gone away.”