At last she said, "You know, we met Dias."
"Ah?" responded Laura, without interest.
"He's very well."
"That's nothing extraordinary."
"He's coming to-morrow."
"Good."
But when he arrived the next day, it was Laura who received him. Anna, at the sound of the bell, had taken refuge in her own room.
"Oh, wise Minerva!" cried Dias, pressing her little white hand. "You are well. You are natural. You know no weakness. You, I am sure, haven't been counting the days of my absence. I understand. I am wise, too. We are like the Seven Sages of Greece."
She responded with a smile. Cesare Dias looked at her admiringly. Then Anna came. She was embarrassed; and red and white alternated in her cheek. She spoke nervously, and kept her eyes inquiringly fixed upon Cesare's face. He, on the other hand, was calm and superior. He behaved as if he had never been away. He had the good sense not to mention Luigi Caracciolo; and Anna, who was waiting for that name as for an occasion to show her submissiveness, was disconcerted. Dias appeared to have forgotten the ingratitude with which he had reproached her. He had the countenance of a man too magnanimous to bear a grudge. And Anna was more than ever disconcerted by such unmerited generosity. For several days he did not speak of Caracciolo; then, noticing how Anna said yes to every remark he made, little by little he began to reintroduce the subject. Little by little Caracciolo regained his position, became a new, an important member of their group. He returned to the attack, encouraged by the smile he had received that day in the Mergellina. His manner was more devoted than ever. He treated the girl as a loved object before whom he could pass his life kneeling. She could not control a movement of dislike at first seeing him, because it was he who had occasioned her quarrel with Cesare Dias; but Luigi did not notice it; and she soon got herself in hand, determined to treat him as kindly as she possibly could. It was a sacrifice she was making to please Cesare Dias. She closed her eyes to shut out the vision of the peril towards which she was advancing. She compromised herself with Luigi Caracciolo day after day. She compromised herself as a girl does only with the man she means to marry; accepting flowers from him, answering his notes, listening to his compliments; and at night, when she was alone, she would tremble with anger and with self-contempt, counting the steps she had made during the afternoon towards the great danger! But the fear of seeing Cesare Dias again absent himself for eight days, the fear that he might again pass eight days at the feet of the Contessa d'Alemagna, or at those of some other beautiful woman—this fear rendered her so weak that she went on, not knowing where she might stop, feeling that she was approaching the most terrible crisis of her life.