“No,” she replied.

“When do you count on doing it?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking of counter orders, of a prolonging of the journey, of delay. I don’t know,” she said, confused.

“We will telegraph, then, from Turin; we stop two hours there,” he added somewhat drily.

“Are we going straight on to Rome?” she asked a little timidly.

“Naturally, naturally. We arrive at Rome at ten to-morrow.”

“Ah.”

In spite of her intense power of dissimulation, she did not succeed in hiding an expression of fear.

“It seems to me, Vittoria,” said Marco, who had become very bad-tempered, “that you view with little pleasure our returning to Rome.”

“You are mistaken.”