She was dizzy with the beautiful vision.
"Oh, if I could only go on like this for ever! But I mustn't listen to you, dearest. It's no use, you know. Now, is it?"
The spirit which had exalted him for a moment took flight, and his heart rose into his throat.
"Now, is it?" she repeated.
He did not answer, and she dropped back with a sigh. Ah, it was cruel fencing. Every word was a sword, and it was cutting a hundred ways.
At that moment a band of music passed down the street. Roma, who loved bands of music, asked Rossi to lift her up that she might look at it. A little drummer boy was marching at the head of a procession, gaily rolling his rataplan.
"He reminds me of little Joseph," she said, and she laughed heartily. Strange mystery of life that robs death of all its terrors!
He put his arm about her to support her as they stood by the parapet, and this brought a new tremor of affection, as well as a little of the old physical thrill and a world of fond and tender memories. She looked into his eyes, he looked into hers; they both looked across to Trinità de' Monti, and in the eye-asking between them she said plainly, "Do you remember—over there?"
Roma was assisted back to the bed-chair, and then, conversation being impossible, Rossi began to read. Every day he had read something. Roma had made the selections. They were always about the great lovers—Francesca and Paolo, Dante and Beatrice, even Alfred de Musset and poor John Keats, with the skull cap which burnt his brain. To-day it was Roma's favourite poem:
"Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought...."