The conversation to an eavesdropper would have seemed a monologue by the lady, with long pauses. In these pauses she was reading her lover's thoughts. The young man's pleasure in these gazings was even greater than the Diva's. Within her eyes, themselves an entrancement, he found love and infinite devotion. Under their spell he asked no greater joy than opening wide the secret chambers of his soul.
"Did the little blond hero happen to notice how I finished the prayer song this morning?"
The little blond hero—who was some inches taller than the Diva when on his feet—nodded. He nodded slowly and carefully in consideration of the bandaged throat.
"And that it was a little different from the way I usually sing it?"
Again the answer was a careful nod.
"How did he like it? Is it better that way?"
This time, after the faint, affirmative sign, she gazed longer into the adoring eyes, waiting a less simple answer. She found it, and with no aid from his lips.
"Yes, that was my idea precisely. More strength in the final passages; the deeper feeling of a mother's appeal." Then, with closed eyes and clasped hands: "May the prayer be answered, for my whole soul is in it!"
On the clasped hands the invalid laid one of his own, with a gentle pressure, telling of sympathy, hope and confidence. She opened her eyes and returned his smile. "Yes, yes. We must be cheerful; always cheerful and full of hope. It will be better for the child."
After a silence, in which both looked thoughtfully over the tree tops, toward the distant coast of Italy, beyond the butterfly sails far below moving here and there on the shimmering surface of the Adriatic, she turned, in response to another pressure of the hand, and again looked deep into the patient's eyes.