Cesare Dias never answered her. How could she expect him to, indeed? Had he not torn her first letters up, under her eyes?
Whenever his servant brought him one of Anna's letters he received it with a movement of impatience. He was not altogether displeased, however. He read them with a calm judicial mind, amused at their "rhetoric," and forbore to answer them. He went less frequently to her house than formerly. They were rarely alone together now. But sometimes it happened that they were; and then, observing her pale face, her eyes red from weeping, he asked: "What is it? Why do you go on like this?"
"What do you wish me to do?" she returned.
"I want you to be merry, to laugh."
"That—that is impossible," she said, drooping her eyes to hide the tears in them.
And Dias, fearing a scene, was silent.
He was a man of much self-control, but he confessed to himself that he would not be able, as she was, to bear an unrequited love with patience.
Anna was a woman, a woman in the full sense of the word. She had hoped to win his heart; but now she relinquished hope. And one day, in May, she wrote him a letter of farewell; she would never write again; it was useless, useless. She bade him farewell; she said she would like to go away, go away from Naples to Sorrento, to the Villa Caterina, where her mother had loved and died.
She begged Laura and Stella to take her to Sorrento. And Stella wrote to Dias to ask his permission. He replied at once, saying he thought the change of air would be capital for Anna. They had best leave at once. He could not call to bid them good-bye, but he would soon come to see his dear girls at the Villa.
Stella said: "Dias has written to me."