He had unconsciously made a gesture that frightened her.
“Let me stay like this, leaning against you. May I? I am so tired and I feel restful, leaning against you like this, my darling. My darling, my darling ... things will never be as they were. What are we to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, in despair. “I want to marry you as soon as may be. You won’t consent.”
“I can’t. I mustn’t.”
“Then I don’t know what to do or say.”
“Don’t be angry. Don’t leave me. Help me, do, do! I love you, I love you, I love you!”
She drew him into her arms, in a close, sudden embrace, as though in perplexity and despair. He kissed her passionately in response.
“O God, tell me what to do!” she prayed, as she, lay hopelessly perplexed in his embrace.
CHAPTER LIII
Next day, when Cornélie walked with Duco through Florence, when they entered the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, saw the Loggia dei Lanzi and looked in at the Uffizi to see Memmi’s Annunciation, she felt something like her former sensations irresistibly unfolding within her. They seemed to have taken their lines which had burst asunder and with human force to have bent them together again into one path, along which the white daisies and white lilies shot up with a tenderness of soft, mystic recognition that was almost like a dream. And yet it was not quite the same as before. An oppression as of a grey cloud hung between her and the deep-blue sky, which hung out stretched like strips of æther, like paths of lofty, quivering atmosphere, above the narrow streets, above the domes and towers and turrets. She no longer felt the former apprehension; there was a remembrance in her, a heavy pondering weighed upon her brain, an anxiety for what was about to happen. She had a presentiment as of a coming storm; and when, after their walk, they had had something to eat and went home, she dragged herself up the stairs to Duco’s room more wearily than she had ever done in Rome. And she at once saw a letter lying on the table, a letter addressed to her. But how addressed! It gave her so violent a start that she began to tremble in every limb and managed to thrust the letter away even before Duco had followed her into the room. She took off her hat and told Duco that she wanted to get something out of her trunk, which was standing in the passage. He asked if he could help her; but she said no and left the room and went into the narrow passage. Here, standing by the little window overlooking the Arno, she took out the letter. It was the only place where she could read for a moment undisturbed. And she read that address again, written in his hand, which she knew so well, with its great thick, heavy characters. The name which she bore abroad was her maiden name; she called herself Madame de Retz van Loo. But on the envelope she read, briefly: