What was the good of trying to explain to him the inner life? He had no imagination.
Her youth made her very drastic, very sweeping, in her secret mental assertions.
She labelled the Marchesino “Philistine,” and popped him into his drawer.
Lunch was over, and they got up.
“Are you afraid of the heat out-of-doors, Marchese?” Hermione asked, “or shall we have coffee in the garden? There is a trellis, and we shall be out of the sun.”
“Signora, I am delighted to go out.”
He got his straw hat, and they went into the tiny garden and sat down on basket-work chairs under a trellis, set in the shadow of some fig-trees. Giulia brought them coffee, and the Marchesino lighted a cigarette.
He said to himself that he had never been in love before.
Vere wore a white dress. She had no hat on, but held rather carelessly over her small, dark head a red parasol. It was evident that she was not afraid even of the midday sun. That new look in her face, soft womanhood at the windows gazing at a world more fully, if more sadly, understood, fascinated him, sent the blood up to his head. There was a great change in her. To-day she knew what before she had not known.
As he stared at Vere with adoring eyes suddenly there came into his mind the question: “Who has taught her?”