His grasp tightened. “How do you know he is telling you the truth?”
She threw back her head proudly. The curve of her throat shone through the dusk like a white pillar. “Alexis is not a liar!”
Vittorio laughed grimly. It was worse than he had feared. “But you cannot mean to marry him. He is entirely out of your class, an artist, a Bohemian. If you cannot protect yourself from such people, I must do it for you.”
Anne succeeded in wrenching away her hands.
“I have not asked for your protection, Vittorio Torrigiani.”
“No, madonna mia, but you need it. You suddenly decide to throw away your life and expect me to sit calmly by. I warn you I am desperate. I cannot permit this sacrilege.”
“Sacrilege? You call this sacrilege? If you had used that word a few months ago you might have come nearer to the truth. But now——!”
He broke in quickly. “Ah, that was different. That was only for the time being. This is for life. That was a whim, a condescension. Not to be taken seriously like marriage.”
“I took it seriously,” her voice was quick with reproach.
“I know you did, and I loved you for it, although it nearly broke my heart. To feel that you belonged to another man, that you had given yourself of your own free will was the most fearful hell I hope to ever have to undergo. But this is ten times worse. It isn’t only that I am going to lose you forever, that is bad enough, God knows, but to know that you will be miserable, unhappy, completely out of your sphere. Ah, that is more than I can bear.”