"A scorpion!" she exclaimed. "I am sure I saw a scorpion! It ran in there—into that hole close to my foot."
"I dare say," said Bianca, indifferently. "It is the time of year when one finds them, but I have never seen one just here. It is too damp for them, I think."
Mademoiselle Durand had made no further allusion after this either to Silvio Rossano or to the scorpion. Indeed, she turned the conversation into professional channels with some abruptness, and shortly afterwards she returned to the house preparatory to going back to Albano.
Mademoiselle's question returned to Bianca's mind as she sat under her ilex-tree. It was all nonsense, of course, for how could she meet Silvio Rossano and talk to him about his love-affair? Mademoiselle Durand knew perfectly well that there could be no question of such a thing. But still it would be very interesting to hear all about this mysterious girl with whom he was so hopelessly in love. And, yes, she would certainly like to meet him and talk to him. It was odd how well she remembered his features, though she had never dared to look at him very much. Nevertheless, since that Christmas night in the Sudario they had seemed to be impressed upon her mind. And that other girl, the one he was in love with, whose name Mademoiselle Durand declared she was bound in honor not to mention, did she think much about him—remember the look of his eyes and the expression of his mouth? Perhaps she never thought about him at all.
At this stage of her reflections Bianca suddenly found herself becoming angry. She had just paused to ask herself why this should be, when a soft, pattering sound which was not that of the fountains fell upon her ear. Looking up, she became aware that the sunlight had faded, and that the shade around her had grown suddenly deeper. The air felt heavier and more stifling, and the pattering noise that had at first attracted her attention seemed to come nearer and nearer as the light grew more dim. From somewhere in the underwood a frog began to croak contentedly:
"Or s'ode su tutta la fronda
crosciare
l'argentea pioggia
che monda,
il croscio che varia
secondo la fronda
più folta, men folta
Ascolta.
La figlia del aria
è muta; ma la figlia
del limo lontana,
la rana,
canta nell'ombra più fonda,
chi sa dove, chi sa dove!"[#]
[#] Le laudi; (Pioggia nel Pineto) Gabriele d'Annunzio.
Bianca rose hurriedly and looked at the sky. The campagna below, and even the vineyards on the slopes of the hill immediately beneath the park of the Villa Acorari, still lay bathed in sunshine. The light rain that was falling was evidently only a passing summer-shower, and not, as she had for a moment feared, the immediate precursor of one of those violent hail-storms that sometimes sweep over the Alban hills, devastating in a few minutes the crops of a whole district, and turning smiling vineyards, laden with fruit, into brown and barren wildernesses.
Bianca picked up her neglected book and made her way towards a little casino which stood at the end of the ilex avenue, inside which she proposed to shelter herself until the shower should have passed over. She had scarcely taken a few steps under the sombre green branches when she started back with a little cry. A man stepped from behind one of the gnarled trunks and stood before her, bare-headed. In an instant she recognized him. He was not the god—no. For a second she had almost thought that he might be. Then she looked at him again. Not the god—no; but surely the god could scarcely be fairer.
She turned aside hesitatingly.