“No.”
“I feel exhausted,” he added vaguely, “I am going to sleep. What are you going to do?”
“I am going to write home.”
“Brava! Write for me too; tell them everything, little Vittoria.”
“You haven’t written to any one, Marco,” she observed.
“I am a poor letter-writer, little Vittoria.”
“Have you always been?” and the question seemed conventional and polite.
“Not always,” he replied, falling into the trap; “au revoir, Vittoria; occupy yourself with the flowers, and this evening we will go under the Loggia di Orcagna.”
He disappeared into the other room. For several minutes she continued to gather together the branches of odorous lilies and fragrant roses. Then she went on tip-toe to the bedroom door, looked in, and listened. Marco was asleep, and his face was wasted with weariness. Then she returned to the table, threw herself into a chair, and buried her face in her hands, completely unstrung.
“O my God! my God!” she cried, through her clenched teeth, so as not to be heard. But the fresh flowers, the lilies and rich red roses, which were beneath her face and hands, repelled her as something horrid, fell to the ground, and lay there while she sobbed and invoked Heaven desperately in a stifled voice.