'True, they are all in the Corso; I was to have gone, too.'
And she stopped on the broad, sunny terrace, whence they could view the whole, great, riotous sea of the populace in the Piazza del Popolo. He felt a pang at his heart, as if the sight robbed him of a portion of his happiness. She laid her slender hand, gloved in chamois, on the parapet, and gazed upon the great, dark floods of people, from which a noise rose up as of a volcano.
'How they are enjoying themselves down there,' she murmured sadly.
He waited behind her, seized with a fit of impatience.
'Come away, come away,' he urged.
She turned her back to the city, and accompanied him to the large avenue at the left; she kept her eyes on the ground as if wrapt in thought.
'No, there is nobody about,' she said, as though in relief. 'It is fortunate that it is carnival time. The people are nearly mad. Would you not rather be down there?'
'How can you possibly believe——?' he began in an injured tone.
'There are many things I can no longer believe in,' she whispered, as though in self-communion.
'You are so kind; I do not know what to say; be merciful,' he begged, with the humility of a Christian before the Blessed Image.