They shook hands and looked at each other for a long moment, as if each wished to read in the other's face the story of the two years in which they had not seen each other. Certainly Lucio Sabini was the more deeply changed. His black hair, where up to thirty-five not a single silver thread had appeared, now was quite streaked with white round the temples; his face from being thin had become fleshless; his black eyes that had been so proud seemed extinguished; the shoulders of the tall, slender figure were a little bent, and all his physiognomy had an expression of weariness, of failing strength, of vanished energy.
"Are you alone, Vittorio?"
"I am here alone, Sabini."
"Disengaged?"
"Yes."
"Then I will sit a little with you."
He sat down opposite him, and became silent, as he watched the sea.
"Won't you take something, dear friend?" asked Vittorio, with careful courtesy.
"If I must, I will take some sort of coloured water," murmured Lucio Sabini, and his long, brown, very thin hand brushed his black moustache in a familiar gesture. Again they looked at each other intensely. Lucio seemed to make an effort to begin an ordinary conversation.
"Have you been long in Venice, Vittorio?"