"Forgive me if I have stayed too long," she said, making a feint of opening the door.
"I should have grudged every moment if you had gone sooner," he answered.
"I only wished that you should not think of me with hatred and bitterness."
"If I ever had such a feeling it is gone."
"Mine has gone too," she said softly, and again she prepared to go.
One hook of her cape had got entangled in the silk muslin at her shoulder, and while trying to free it she looked at him, and her look seemed to say, "Will you?" and his look replied, "May I?" and at the physical touch a certain impalpable bridge seemed in an instant to cross the space that had divided them.
"Let me see you to the door?" he said, and her eyes said openly, "Will you?"
They walked down the staircase side by side, going step by step, and almost touching.
"I forgot to give you my address—eighteen Trinità de' Monti," she said.
"Eighteen Trinità de' Monti," he repeated.