She smiled, enveloping him, mastering him, taking him as a child with her ample powers.
"You will never go back to 'that'!"
Her arm by his side filled out the thought.
"Never," he heard himself say as on a stage, and the dusky lights from that radiant face seemed very near.
"Because——"
"Because I am——"
"Sh," she laid her fingers lightly on his forehead. "There is no thine and mine."
Bastian dipped his sweep once more. San Giorgio's austere façade went out into the black night. One cold ripple of Adriatic wind stirred the felza curtains.
II
The garden on the Giudecca was a long narrow strip on the seaward side, blossoming profusely with flowers. A low vine-covered villino slanted along the canal; beyond, there was a cow-house where a boy was feeding some glossy cows. The garden was full of the morning sun.