He called in specialists; talked of a change of air; even brought himself, when he was far enough away from Roma, to the length of suggesting an operation. The doctors shook their heads. At last he bowed his own head. His bride-wife must leave him. He must live on without her.
Meantime Roma was cheerful, and at moments even gay. Her gaiety was heart-breaking. Blinding bouts of headache were her besetting trouble, but only by the moist red eyes did any one know anything about that. When people asked her how she felt, she told them whatever she thought they wished to hear. It brought a look of relief to their faces, and that made her very happy.
With Rossi, during these ten days, she had carried on the fiction that she was getting better. This was to break the news to him, and he on his part, to break the news to her, had pretended to believe the story. They made Elena help the little artifice, and even engaged the doctors in their mutual deception.
"And how is my darling to-day?"
"Splendid! There's really nothing to do with me. It's true I have suffered. That's why I look so pale. But I'm better now. Elena will tell you how well I slept last night. Didn't I sleep well, Elena? Elena.... Poor Elena is going a little deaf and doesn't always speak when she is spoken to. But I'm all right, David. In fact, I'll feel no pain at all before long, and then I shall be well."
"Yes, dear, you'll feel no pain at all before long, and then you'll be well."
It was pitiful. All their words seemed to be laden with double meanings. They could find none that were not.
But the time had come when Roma resolved she must speak plainly. Rossi had lifted her into the loggia. He did so every day, carrying her, not on his arm as a woman carries a child, but against his breast, as a man carries his wife when he loves her. She always put her arms around his neck, pretending it was necessary for her safety, and when he had laid her gently in the bed-chair she pulled down his head and kissed him. The two little journeys were the delight of the day to Roma, but to Rossi they were a deepening trouble.
It was the sweetest day of the sweet Roman spring, and Roma wore a light tea-gown with a coil of white silk about her head such as is seen in the portraits of Beatrice Cenci. The golden complexion was quite gone, there was a hard line along the cheek, a deep shadow under the chin, the nostrils were pinched and the mouth was drawn. But the large eyes, though heavy with pain, were full of joy. They did not weep any more, for all their tears were shed, and the light of another world was reflected in their depths.
Rossi sat by her side, and she took one of his hands and held it on her lap between both her own. Sometimes she looked at him and then she smiled. She, who had lost him for a little while, had got him back at last. It was only just in time. A little break, and they would continue this—there. Ah, she was very happy!