“Nor I.”
“But perhaps,” he resumed, questioning her with his glance, “you have frightened him and kept him at a distance with your contempt.”
“I have done all that is possible; I am doing all that is possible,” she said vaguely, as if speaking to herself.
“You don’t love him; he will have understood.”
“I am humiliated and humiliate myself every day!” Maria exclaimed in a sorrowful voice; “and I break my pride every instant before him. But I can’t tell him to love me; neither does he ask it of me. He asks me nothing.”
“And if he were to ask it?” he said.
“He won’t; he won’t. He has understood I can’t lie.”
“Poor Emilio!” he exclaimed.
“Do you pity him? Even I pity him. He has had pity on me, and I return it to him. But beyond this he can do nothing for me, and I can do nothing for him.”
The conversation had suddenly become austere. The worldling appeared preoccupied, the woman with her beautiful hands crossed on her knees was telling her tale as if in a dream. Gianni Provana looked two or three times at her. She was so young still, so flourishing in beauty, with every womanly grace, and he said to her—