How true that was, for even now, as she felt herself to be nothing, she felt herself to be tremendous.
She heard the sound of oars from the darkness before them, and saw the dim outline of a boat, then the eyes of Emile looking straight into hers.
“Emile!”
“Hermione!”
His face was gone. But yielding to her impulse she made Andrea stop, and, turning round, saw that the other boat had also stopped a little way from hers. It began to back, and in a moment was level with them.
“Emile! How strange to meet you! Have—you haven’t been to the island?”
“No. I was tired. I have been working very hard. I dined quietly at Posilipo.”
He did not ask her where she had been.
“Yes. I think you look tired,” she said. He did not speak, and she added: “I felt restless, so I took the tram from the Trattoria del Giardinetto as far as the Scoglio di Frisio, and am going back, as you see, by boat.”
“It is exquisite on the sea to-night,” he said.