Next day, when Duco met CornÉlie at the osteria, she was very cheerful and excited. She told him that she had already received a reply from the woman’s paper to which she had sent her pamphlet the week before and that her work was not only accepted but would be paid for. She was so proud at earning money for the first time that she was as merry as a little child. She did not speak of the previous evening, seemed to have forgotten Urania, but felt an exuberant need to talk.

She formed all sorts of great plans: to travel about as a journalist, to fling herself into the movement of the great cities, to pursue every reality, to have herself sent by some paper as a delegate to congresses and festivals. The few guilders which she was earning already made her intoxicated with zeal; and she would like to make a lot of money and do a great deal and consider no fatigue. He thought her simply adorable: in the half light of the osteria, as she sat at the little table eating her gnocchi, with in front of her the mezzofiasco of pale-yellow wine of the country, her usual languor acquired a new vivacity which astonished him; her outline, half-dark on the left, lighted on the right by the sunshine in the street, acquired a modern grace of drawing which reminded him of the French draughtsmen: the rather pale face with the delicate features, lit up by her smile, faintly indicated under the sailor hat, which slanted over her eyes; the hair, touched with gold, or a dark light-brown; the white veil raised into a rumpled mist above; her figure, slender and gracious in the simple, unbuttoned coat, with a bunch of violets in her blouse.

The manner in which she helped herself to wine, in which she addressed the cameriere—the only one, who knew them well, from seeing them daily—with a pleasant familiarity; the vivacity replacing her languor; her great plans, her gay phrases: all this seemed to shine upon him, unconstrained and yet distinguished, free and yet womanly and, above all, easy, as she was at her ease everywhere, with an assimilative tact which for him constituted a peculiar harmony. He thought of the evening before, but she did not speak of it. He thought of that revelation of her coquetry, but she was not thinking of coquetry. She was never coquettish with him. She looked up to him, regarded him as clever and exceptional, though not belonging to his time; she respected him for the things which he said and thought; and she was as matter of fact towards him as one chum towards another, who happened to be older and cleverer. She felt for him a sincere friendship, an indescribable something that implied the need of being together, of living together, as though the lines of their two lives should form one line. It was not a sisterly feeling and it was not passion and to her mind it was not love; but it was a great sense of respectful tenderness, of longing admiration and of affectionate delight at having met him. If she never saw him again, she would miss him as she would never miss any one in her life. And that he took no interest in modern questions did not lower him in the eyes of this young modern Amazon, who was about to wave her first banner. It might vex her for an instant, but it did not carry weight in her estimation of him. And he saw that, with him, she was simply affectionate, without coquetry. Yet he would never forget what she had been like yesterday, with the prince. He had felt jealousy and noticed it in Urania also. But she herself had acted so spontaneously in harmony with her nature that she no longer thought of that evening, of the prince, of Urania, of her own coquettishness or of any possible jealousy on their side.

He paid the bill—it was his turn—and she gaily took his arm and said that she had a surprise in store for him, with which he would be very pleased. She wanted to give him something, a handsome, a very handsome keepsake. She wanted to spend on it the money she was going to receive for her article. But she hadn’t got it yet ... as though that mattered! It would come in due time. And she wanted to give him his present now.

He laughed and asked what it could be. She hailed a carriage and whispered an address to the driver. Duco did not hear. What could it be? But she refused to tell him yet.

The vetturino drove them through the Borgo to the Tiber and stopped outside a dark little old-curiosity-shop, where the wares lay heaped up right out into the street.

“CornÉlie!” Duco exclaimed, guessing.

“Your Lippo Memmi angel. I’m getting it for you. Not a word!”

The tears came to his eyes. They entered the shop.

“Ask him how much he wants for it.”

He was too much moved to speak; and CornÉlie had to ask the price and bargain. She did not bargain long: she bought the panel for a hundred and twenty lire. She herself carried it to the victoria.

And they drove back to his studio. They carried the angel up the stairs together, as though they were bearing an unsullied happiness into his home. In the studio they placed the angel on a chair. Of a noble aspect, of a somewhat Mongolian type, with long, almond-shaped eyes, the angel had just knelt down in the last stir of his flight; and the gold scarf of his gold-and-purple cloak fluttered in the air while his long wings quivered straight above him. Duco stared at his Memmi, filled with a two-fold emotion, because of the angel and because of her.

And with a natural gesture he spread out his arms:

“May I thank you, CornÉlie?”

And he embraced her; and she returned his kiss.