After Anne dropped Vittorio at his hotel blankness fell upon her; the limitless blankness of a solitary planet whirling in space. A loneliness devastating as the fear of death. What a strange, uncompanioned thing the soul was. How horribly alone. How impossible for it to merge with another.

Not a weeping woman, Anne was conscious of an intolerable ache in her throat, an intolerable emptiness in the heart. She and Vittorio had parted once again, and this time it had hurt, as if her very flesh had been riven apart. And yet, so alone is the soul, so dumb in its self-expression, that the short drive had appeared neither tragic nor momentous. Merely unfruitful and incomplete.

A malaise had lain upon them from the very beginning. A creeping paralysis had bound their tongues to trivialities, their souls to silence and constraint. And yet Anne felt as if neither of them would ever forget this night. Nor how beautiful the park had looked, like a scene in a Russian opera, with the snow blossoming upon the trees like gigantic flowers. Skyscrapers, luminous against the heavens, impregnable castles of supermen, had flung a challenge into space. Their diamond-studded windows were more brilliant than the stars.

But inside the car it had been warm, even cozy. Vittorio’s shoulder had brushed against hers. His profile only half visible, had leaned towards her. The scent of his cigarettes still lingered upon the air with a hint of comfort. She stretched out her hand and touched the place where he had sat. It was still warm. Some of his vitality remained as if to console her. He had actually sat there a few moments ago in the flesh. And now there was only a vague hint of warmth,—and emptiness. How could a thing be one moment, and yet not only vanish the next, but even seem as if it had never existed? Was it possible that nothing was real, after all? How strange a thing is the fluidity of time. The past flowed into the present. The present welled into the future, and swept onwards like a mighty river, towards the ocean of eternity, whence came its source. Encircling the globe in its rushing current, it carried one upon its bosom, helpless but protesting from the vast gray sea of birth to the vast gray sea of death, which in the end are one and the same.

What a mystery it all was, a problem. Heavy with weariness, Anne’s smile showed drearily from beneath a passing arc light. Protest, rebellion? What was the use of either, if one were only a leaf upon the swirl of heavy waters? To stay the flow for the fraction of a second was an impossibility denied even to the gods.

Things were like that. A little while ago she and Vittorio had sat here, side by side, and uttered trivialities. The moment was gone forever and he with it. Carried upon it as if by a substance more powerful than flesh and blood. And now that he was no longer there, that he no longer existed In time, it seemed, she could think of a thousand things that they might have said to each other.

As it was, she scarcely remembered that they had exchanged more than a few phrases. Yet of course that could have been hardly possible. She recalled asking him how he had enjoyed his stay in Mexico, and scarcely listening for the reply. She had a vague impression that he had found it interesting. He had spoken at some length about a friend of his, a Spaniard, whose diggings he had visited near Mexico City, where the remains of an ancient civilization, entirely concealed by lava, were in the process of discovery. Bodies had been found, almost perfectly preserved in the positions in which the fiery death had caught them. The very utensils in their hands were unbroken. Some of the bodies were being placed in glass cases, to be exhibited in the Museum in Mexico City. Anne had laughed foolishly at this point, making some banal remark about how embarrassing it must have been for the poor creatures, as if one were caught with one’s hair in curl-papers.

But her ridiculous laughter had helped, if only momentarily, to break through the crust of constraint which lay upon them both like the coating of lava upon the little city he was telling her of. Vittorio had turned to her abruptly, and asked if she were happy. The tremor in his voice had startled her.

“Is any one ever happy?” she had evaded.

But he had insisted upon knowing the truth.

“For God’s sake, tell me Anne. It can’t hurt me half as much as to feel that you are suffering or have made a frightful mistake. I don’t think I could quite bear that!”

“I suppose I am happy,” her reply had been somewhat uncertain. “I didn’t expect to be happy, you know.”

But her answer had not pleased him. Perhaps he had considered it both priggish and insincere. For his voice was incredulous and slightly mocking as he had proceeded.

“Oh, Anne, admit it. You are madly in love with him? What woman wouldn’t be? He is a genius. This evening proved that if nothing else. As I listened to him, chills coursed up my spine. Chills of admiration, and yes, I might as well own up to it, chills of hatred and of jealousy. I am a man, and I suffered. He is too beautiful, Anne. He reminds me of a small statuette I once dug up near Messina, and which was since destroyed in the earthquake. Of course you love him, Anne. It goes without saying. And I prefer to have you honest about it.”

His tone had both distressed and annoyed her. Why did men always take things for granted? Even Vittorio, who had known her for the last ten years could not seem to understand the many-faceted urge which impelled her actions.

“But Vittorio, I don’t think I do love him,” she had remonstrated patiently. “That is, I’m not in love with him. He is really more like a child than a man in some ways. A fascinating, precocious child, of course, but sometimes a very naughty one!”

And then she was sorry to have admitted so much, for she sensed that her words had resounded upon Vittorio’s heart like a blow.

“Not that he’s not good to me,” she hastened to add, impelled by pride and pity. “A bit difficult at times, because he knows that he cannot make me his wife. But I don’t really mind. For I’m so sorry for him.”

The rest of the drive had proceeded in stark silence, punctuated at intervals by those scattered inanities by which one strives to cover the nakedness of the soul.

As he sat beside her to-night, Anne surmised the torture that Vittorio had undergone. Her knowledge of his character was founded upon years of comradeship. A proud man, it must have been sheer agony for him to realize her anomalous position. To feel that she had been content to take second best when he had offered her his all so many times and been rejected. And yet although it was inevitable that he should suffer, not once had he made her feel any lessening of his respect, or even of his love. He had understood so much better than most men the impulse of pity that lay back of her surrender. He had seemed to comprehend, too, the temporal quality of it all. Anne knew that if she would leave Alexis and go to Vittorio some day he would not only consider her as unsmirched as before, but possibly better for the experience. He was unique among men in that he realized the sacrificial quality of her action. The only thing that he would not forgive would be hypocrisy. Of that she was aware, to her despair. For it was this very thing that had severed them like a sword when they parted. Vittorio believed that out of some motive of pity, and possibly of modesty, Anne was deceiving him about her feeling for Alexis. She knew he believed this and yet she was as powerless to undeceive him as she was to take up the imaginary sword that lay between them and thrust it into her living breast. Oh, why had she not obeyed her instinct for flight, and avoided this perilous encounter? What a tragedy of errors they had all drifted into. What a farce it was. A trick of the ironical gods who dig colossal fingers into one’s ribs and expect one to laugh like a babe being tickled. Why had Vittorio returned to-night of all nights? To-night when she had been riding upon the pinnacle? Why had their eyes encountered in that shattering glance, which had flung her once more into the abyss of doubt and fear? She had felt so exultant in Alexis’ triumph. So eager to pour renewed radiance upon his victory and his fatigue. And now the desire had completely departed, sucked into the mud of anti-climax.

But this mood was not only foolish, but dangerous. To-night was big with significance. She must retain the glamor at all costs. To-night belonged to Alexis. It was his triumph and re-entry into his birthright. Upon it, his genius had emerged, new-born and greater than ever before, as if in temporary recoil it had acquired impetus. Yes, to-night was Alexis’ and hers, for was it not her love that had re-created him? Was not his inspiration begotten of their passion as truly as if it had been a child of flesh and blood? No, Alexis must never suspect the still-born quality of her joy. Nor that she was relying upon his living blaze to rekindle her own flame.

To-night had a special significance too, in the fact that she was permitting him to come to her in her own house for the first time since they had become lovers. Fear that the servants, those ancient slave-drivers of convention, might talk, had hitherto rendered her cautious. But this was a special occasion for which she had decided to break all rules. It would have been intolerable not to have rejoiced together to-night. And sacrilege to have done so in public. Even now she had been discreet and arranged for most of her household to be out. Regina alone, had prepared the little supper, which was to be served before the fire in the upstairs sitting-room. Regina, who would have returned from the concert herself, and who had probably shed tears of joy over Alexis’ triumph. Dear old Regina of the keen eyes and wise heart, who, suspecting all, had never let fall a hint or a reproach. Poor Regina, who had not permitted herself to speak of the Marchese since his departure, and whose plucky spirit was, as Anne knew, heavy with nostalgia for Florence and the beloved villa.