She laughed, showing those resplendent white teeth that made her smile so irresistible. Only she never smiled, she always laughed.
But neither was there any view from their elevated position, except that the diaphanous, whitish, milky ocean of mist looked larger yet. Straight in front were discernible the few lights, which still remained unextinguished at three o'clock in the morning, in the Via Condotti. Below, the Piazza di Spagna lay spread out, in its reposeful and magnificent architectural beauty, from the Via Propaganda Fide to the Via Babuino.
'Let us go away from here,' she said.
He allowed himself to be taken in leading-strings; this, his first romantic adventure, gave him intense pleasure. This lady, for she was a lady in spite of the lightness and audacity of her conduct, aroused all the desires of a virile man, provincial, imaginative, and by nature sentimental. This was a real romance, and this fine lady, wrapped in her fur cloak, scented, wearing magnificent diamonds that glistened in the moonlight, who had sent her carriage away so as to walk with him here, at night, through the streets of Rome—this splendid creature seduced him by everything she was and everything she represented. He succumbed to her personal fascination, the stronger through the peculiarity of the circumstances. His wonted, ordinary scruples were overcome, and he yielded to this new triumph for his vanity, flattered, exultant, and delighted over his conquest.
They went down the steps in the moonbeams that seemed to bathe the stones of old Rome. On the last step but two, Donna Elena withdrew her arm from Sangiorgio's and sat down. She now looked quite small and black, cowering down on the stair, with her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees, as she gazed at the lovely Bernini fountain, with its bowl overbrimming. Sangiorgio had not seated himself; he was standing upright by her side, eyeing her with a sense of masculine fatuity, which filtered through his submissiveness. The pretty woman seemed downcast, squatting on the ground like a beggar, a bundle of dark clothes, under which perhaps an anxious soul was alive in a throbbing heart. And it almost seemed to him as though he were her lord.
'Do you like the fountain?' she asked in her melodious voice, raising her head.
'It is rather handsome.'
'Yes, it is,' she agreed with a nod. 'Why do you not sit down?'
And she appeared not to be addressing him, but speaking to the purling waters, which for ever fell back into the drowned bowl. He sat down on the step beside her.