"Of course, I am sure to amuse myself very much, as I do every year."
"Leading a fashionable life?"
"No, making love."
"Have you come to the Engadine to love and to be loved, Lucio?"
"Oh, no," exclaimed the other, with a gentle movement of impatience and an ironical little smile. "I never said that: I said that I go to St. Moritz, as I do every year, to make love."
"That is to say—to flirt."
"Exactly: you say the English word, I the Italian."
Suddenly the whiteness that crowned Monte Forno seemed as if it had been extended to the sky, rendering it more vast; it was a great white cloud, soft and clear, since it preceded the moon. All the country changed its aspect. Before them stood out the great, green wall of trees, with almost the appearance of a peak, which separates the Engadine from the Val Bregaglia. Beneath the appearing and disappearing lunar brightness, behind the white cloud, a sinuous spiral disclosed itself amidst the wood like a soft ribbon that came and went, but ever climbed—the road which leads to the hill of the Maloja. Meanwhile, the carriage, reducing its pace, entered the first bend of the winding way; the clouds continued to increase, and there was a continuous alternating of light and shade, according as they conquered the moon or were conquered by her.
"You like flirting, Lucio?"