"I love you, Miss Clarke," he replied promptly, with an unwonted impulse, more passionate than sentimental.
"Do you even love me here, in this arid, gloomy place?" she asked, as if another, a more intense amorous declaration were necessary for her, to conquer, perhaps, the melancholy that weighed her down, or for some other mysterious uncertainty of her soul.
"Here, and everywhere, and always," he said seriously, as if he were proclaiming a shining truth and pronouncing a sublime oath.
"Ah!" she exclaimed simply, as if in a dream.
For an instant, almost in a dream, Mabel bowed her head, as if she wished to drive away every molesting care. She pulled sharply at her horse's rein, to resume a more rapid pace.
The carriages approached. Mabel and Vittorio distanced them again. The man was silent and thoughtful, as if disturbed at what had bubbled forth from his soul in a cry of sincerity. She was silent, watching him now and then, as if to scrutinise his thoughts and feelings, because the accent, which had been more earnest than she had previously heard, had reached her. The horses trotted head to head.
"Is this the Bernina road, Lante?" she asked in a low voice.
"Yes, Miss Clarke," he murmured.
"Then it is the road to Italy?"