“Tacita. Yes,” he had thought, “that is the right name for her. She stays there in that flickering light and shade as silent as any lily!”
Their world had been the world of a Claude landscape, all floating in a golden haze.
Once they had all gone out into the balcony to watch a steamship from Cairo move up the lagoon that was all radiant and red with the setting sun. Another time a thunder-storm had darkened about them, so that they could scarcely see each other, and Don Claudio, coming to her table, had asked softly,—
“Are you afraid, Tacita?”
Another time he had brought her some roses from his mother’s garden.
And now, everything was ended!
“He will come to-morrow for his books,” she thought; “and, after that, we shall never see each other again. But we shall be alone together once, and speak a word of the past, and say farewell, like friends.”
It was all that she expected, or consciously wished for, a friendly and sympathizing word, a clasp of the hand, the first and the last, and a “God be with you!” It would have sweetened her sorrow and loneliness.
After the visit of the Marchesa Loredan, Tacita’s grandfather had talked with her; and the girl had assured him that there was nothing between her and Don Claudio but the calmest good-will. Her naturally quiet disposition had not been disturbed in his regard. But the thought that this was to be their last meeting, and that for the first time they would be alone, could not fail to agitate her somewhat; and when morning came, her expectation became a fluttering.
The books were all sorted, the house all ready for their departure. She and Elena would leave Venice the next morning. She was alone in the room where her grandfather had studied, taught, and died.