'Don't say that,' interrupting her quickly.
'Few things can hurt me,' she replied in a tone he understood and did not want to inquire into.
'Let us go and see the carnival from Signora Fragalà's windows. She asked me, too;' and he got up promptly to carry her off.
'Let us stay here,' Bianca gently retorted. 'Here at least there is peace. Don't you think this calm and silence good for one, too?'
'You are right,' Amati owned, sitting down again quite subdued.
'My father has gone out with his friends to see the carnival,' she went on quietly. 'Everyone in the palace is out on the balconies that look on Toledo; no noise reaches here, you see.'
They looked at each other frankly. That strange hour of unconsciousness, when he saved her, and she knew he was saving her, had set up something like an inward life between them. What she felt was a humble need of protection, help, and counsel; his feeling was a very tender pity. He could not keep back a question that rose to his mind.
'Is it true you wish to be a nun?' he asked in rather a choked voice.
'I would like it,' she said simply.
'Why should you?'