“Alone, Marco; and are you alone?”
“Most alone.”
Their voices were calm, but so tired.
“May I sit beside you, Maria?” he asked, almost supplicatingly.
“Yes, do,” she replied, with a nod.
He placed himself beside her. Lightly and gently he took her gloved hand and pressed it between his for a minute, placing it to his lips. She bent her face just for a minute. The boat went on; the pilot fixed his eyes still more sharply on the mist, because it was getting late and the grey of sky and lake was becoming darker and even threatening.
“I didn’t know that you were travelling in these parts,” he said, trying to discover her face through her veil.
“Nor I that you were, Marco,” she murmured.
Each looked at the other at the same moment, as if they were about to say the same word to express the same idea thought by both, which each left unpronounced.
“Have you been travelling for some time, Maria?” he asked, after a few minutes’ silence.