“I cannot measure it.”
“Tell me, about how much,” he persisted, childishly.
“Let me think,” she said, crossly.
“What are you thinking of? Lucia bella, Lucia mia, tell me what you are thinking of?”
“Of you, rash boy,” said Lucia, starting suddenly into an upright posture, and taking his head between her hands to look him straight in the eyes.... “Of you, unthinking creature, who are about to commit a terrible act, with nothing but love in your heart: neither fear nor remorse....”
“Why remorse? I love you, I want but you, naught besides.”
“Bravo! how straight to the goal! You will have your way. Do you know what you leave behind you? Do you gauge all that you lose or what the future holds in store for you?”
“No, neither do I care; I only care to know that you love me....”
“Be a man, Andrea. Love is so serious a thing, passion is so terrible. Beware; there is great danger for you, in loving, in being loved, by me.”
“I know it; that is what tempts me.”