“You are in time to go there and back before breakfast. It will take you an hour to go there and back.”
“No, I shan’t go ...” said Andrea, after some hesitation.
Caterina was silent. She thought he was always right, and never contradicted him.
“I will go there after breakfast,” he added, as if in explanation of his conduct.
“As you will,” said Caterina, without remarking that after breakfast the tax-collector would be no longer there.
Andrea was becoming irritable again. Caterina standing like that before him, bored him. She seemed to be waiting for something, as if she meant to question him, to call him to account....
“Listen, Caterina, do fetch me my writing-case from the bedroom; I shall stay here and write some important letters.”
Away she went, with her light, elastic step. Lucia’s door opened, and she entered; Andrea, pale with the pleasure of seeing her, ran to meet her. But a disappointment arrested him. She was followed by Alberto. Andrea’s greeting was cool, his fine project of a prolonged contemplation of her melted away.
“Haven’t you been out of doors this morning?” inquired Alberto, fatuously.
“No.”