“I came and I had it,” he repeated. “Did the old woman give you my message?”
“That we should meet again?”
“That was not all. I said you would come to me one day sooner or later.”
They had paused at the top of the steps that lead down from the Capitol into the streets and are guarded by the gigantic figures of Castor and Pollux, great masses of discoloured marble set on pedestals on either side. It was twelve o’clock, and a black stream of hungry, desk-weary men poured out of the Capitoline offices. Many turned to look at the English girl as they hurried by, and one passing close to her muttered “bella” in her ear. She drew back as though she had been stung. Filippo laughed again.
“I only ask to be let alone,” she said. “Can’t you understand that you remind me of things I want to forget. I am ashamed, oh, can’t you understand!”
She left him and went to stand on the outskirts of the crowd that had collected in front of the cage in which the wolves are kept. Evidently she hoped that he would go on, but he meant to disappoint her, and when she went down the steps he was close beside her.
“Why are you so unkind to me?” he said, and as they crossed the road he held her arm.
She wrenched herself away, went up to the carabiniere, who stood at the corner, and spoke to him. The man smiled tolerantly as he glanced from her to Filippo. “Signorina, I cannot help you.”
She passed on down the street, knowing that she was being followed, crossed the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and took a tram in the Piazza della Minerva. Tor di Rocca got in too and sat down opposite to her. The conductor turned to him first, and when she proffered her four soldi she found that he had paid for both. Her hand shook as she put the money back in her purse, and her colour rose. Filippo, quite at his ease, leisurely, openly observant of her, whistled “Lucia” softly to himself. Roses, roses all the way, and all for him, he thought amusedly. And yet she bore the ordeal well, betraying no restlessness, keeping her eyes unswervingly fixed on the two lions of the advertisement of Chinina Migone pasted on the glass over his head. At the Ripetta bridge she got out. He followed, saw her go into a house farther down the street, and paused on the threshold to take the number before he went up the stairs after her. She heard him coming. He turned the handle of the door, but she had locked it and it held fast. He knocked once and called to her. Evidently he was not sure of her being within. There was another room on the same landing, and after a while he tried that.
“Are you in there? Carissima, you are wasting time. To-day or to-morrow, sooner or later. Why not to-day, and soon?”