“And you, Provana?” asked the woman, laughing, too, ironically.
“Oh, I!” he exclaimed, with false bonhommie; “I am the man who waits. Vice versâ in waiting will come old age and death. So I shall pass to my ancestors with a beautiful and ridiculous epitaph: that of having loved Donna Maria Guasco uselessly.”
“It is even a big something to be able to love,” she remarked thoughtfully.
“That is what they say in novels and dramas; in life it is rather boring. Above everything the man who loves alone is the greatest bore of all. Good-night, Donna Maria.”
“Good-night,” she said, without detaining him.
An uncertain, melancholy, bitter dream settled on Maria’s soul.
* * * * * * * *
A voice awoke her from this dream.
“Good-evening, Maria.”
“Good-evening, Emilio.”