“Yes, I think so,” she replied, lifting the flowers of her hat with her white fingers, and not appearing to give much attention to her husband’s discourse.
“Very well, if there is a moon, and it rises late, we must go to the Loggia di Orcagna. Do you remember you saw the Loggia di Orcagna yesterday?”
“Yes, I saw it yesterday,” she replied, folding her white veil accurately.
“At that hour there are no people in the streets of Florence, and it is a city recollected and a little melancholy. Then we must sit on the steps of the Loggia di Orcagna, beneath the statue of Judith, holding in her hand the head of Holofernes, and look around the Piazza della Signoria, and all the visions come to him who knows how to dream.”
“What visions? What dreams?” she demanded coldly, playing with the charms on her gold chain.
Marco looked at her, marvelling a little.
“Do you never dream, little Vittoria?” he asked, with some irony.
“Never,” she replied drily.
“Not even of me when I am not there?” and the tone became still more ironical.
“When you are not there I wait for you; that is all,” she murmured, without further observation.