Again the crazy little carriage belonging to Petrin il Gliglo rolled along the river-bank. The night was hot, dark, and damp. After a few sentences on indifferent matters, Antonio and Regina had fallen silent, as if overcome by the quiet of the country and the night. They were silent, but Regina spoke within herself, as was her habit, and made note of a sad discovery. Antonio was changed! No; this time it really was not fancy! He was changed.

"He kissed me almost in a frenzy the moment he got out of the train—as if he had feared he would never see me again. Then all of a sudden his expression changed. Something gloomy, something deprecating, came into his eyes. Has he lost his faith in me? Is there something between us now? Well! of course it's like this at first. To-morrow the constraint will have passed off."

To drive away all vestige of fear she spoke to him again; but her heart was thumping uncomfortably, and when she pressed his hand and found it inert and cold, unexplained anxiety again took possession of her. It was almost as bad as her terror during those days when she had been vainly expecting a letter from him.

"Oh, what is it?" she thought. "Has he not forgiven me?"

"Feel!" she said, putting Antonio's hand against her side. The hand became suddenly animated.

"Is your heart still bad?" he asked, as if bethinking himself.

"No! It's beating for joy!" she replied, and talked on very fast. "Yesterday I went to the old painted mill, to eat gnocchi. It was such fun! There was a splendid sunset. What a character that old miller is!"

She told the miller's prophecy, then went on to describe a visit to the Master and his family.

"He's a character too! But he's really quite mad. He wants to send the children to Rome—the boy to make his fortune, the girl to become famous. He says——" and she mimicked the Master's speeches and voice.

Antonio laughed, but his laugh was cold and contemptuous, and seemed far away.

"Oh, what is it?" thought Regina, overwhelmed by unexpected sadness. That scoffing laugh was new in Antonio. He was scornful. Was it of herself?

Fancies! Folly!

"As soon as we're alone, I'll take him by the shoulders, shake him and cry, 'What on earth's the matter with you? Haven't you forgiven me? Don't let us have any more nonsense, please! There has been more than enough!'"

They were silent again. The chaise rolled on through the dark warm night, through the pungent perfume of the motionless vegetation. The young trees along the river were black in the darkness, blacker even than the darkness. Everything was silent, everything exhaled sweet odours. From the hot ground, from the damp wayside weeds, from the paths bathed in dew, rose an intoxicating scent, a silent breath, dreamy and voluptuous. Beside every bush seemed to stand a woman waiting for her lover, her desire and her joy filling the emptiness of the hot, rich night.

"To-morrow we'll go out by moonlight," said Regina, who could not keep quite silent. "The night I arrived there was a beautiful moon, wasn't there, Petrin?"

The driver made no reply.

"He's asleep. We shall be upset," said Antonio.

"Oh, no! The old horse is quite used to it," returned Regina, and sure now that Petrin was not listening, she added, softly, "How wretched I was that evening!"

"Were you?" said Antonio, as if remembering nothing of what had passed.

Regina turned round, astonished and trembling. She had no strength left.

"Antonio," she whispered, her arm round his neck, "Why are you like this? What is it? What's the matter?"

"Do you ask?" he murmured, not looking at her. His voice was hardly a breath, but a breath in which Regina felt the raging of a storm of resentment. Again she was afraid.

"You don't mean to forgive me!" she said, separating herself from him. But already he had turned and pressed her to him, his lips seeking hers with a fervour which seemed rather of despair than of passion.

Adamo's voice rang out from the bank.

"Antonio—o! Regina—a!"

Then Petrin's broad back swayed from right to left, and his whip cracked.

"Quel ragass m'ha fatto ciappar pagura (That boy made me jump)," said the man, as if talking in his sleep. Antonio and Regina moved apart, and she blushed in the darkness as if new to love.

Her heart was beating strongly, but between its strokes of joy were shudders of sickening grief.

After supper, as on the night of Regina's arrival, they all went out, except Signora Caterina. Toscana and her brothers ran about as usual, leaving their sister and her husband far behind.

"Yes," said Regina; "my mother is right. You look ill! Surely you've been having fever!"

He did not answer at once. He was thinking. He seemed seeking an appropriate beginning for a speech and unsuccessful in finding it.

"Your mother herself looks out of sorts," he said at last. "What distress you must have caused her, Regina!"

"I? But I never told her a word!"

"Didn't you?"

"Don't you believe me? To explain your silence, I said you were ill."

"Oh, did you?" he repeated, still incredulous. "Well, I was imagining it was her advice had made you less—unkind."

"Unkind? What do you mean?" she asked, coldly.

Antonio was perhaps frightened in his turn. Had he deceived himself, thinking Regina penitent and ready to come home? He became animated, and found that beginning of speech which he had sought. The hour of explanation had come.

Regina asked nothing better; but to her surprise she did not feel the commotion, the joy, the tenderness, which she had anticipated. She was distressed. Antonio had forgiven her; he had suffered; he had come, resolved to take her back at all costs; he loved her more than ever, with true passion; he was united to her by all the strong ties of his heart and his senses. But she was not content; she was not properly stirred. Something was standing between her husband and herself—something inexorable. They walked as of old, their arms round each other, their fingers interlaced; but there was a whole gulf between them, a whole immense river of cold, colourless water, perfidiously silent, like that river down there below the road, scarce visible between the black trees in the black night.

Regina was certainly the clearer-sighted of the two, and she now saw a mysterious thing. Once it was her soul which had escaped Antonio, hiding itself behind a world of littlenesses, of vanity, of vain desires and ambitions; now, on the contrary, it was his soul which some occult and violent force was trying to wrest away from her. She attempted to fathom this mystery.

"What is it? He loves me; he has forgiven me! But he mistrusts, is afraid of me. Why is this?"

"Regina," said Antonio, "you must explain to me what you are intending to do."

"You know already."

"I don't. I don't understand. Your last letter was even worse and uglier than the first. I am not going to reproach you—as you say, it would be useless; but another man in my place—well, never mind! You have told me more than a hundred times that I don't understand you. Now, to show you at least my good-will, I ask you to explain."

"But didn't I write it?" she cried, half humble, half pettish. "I wrote, 'It all depends upon you.'"

"Do you mean you will come back with me to Rome?"

"Yes."

"Oh, very well. I am quite ready to forget all that has taken place. But now I must know one thing more. Why have you given up your idea so soon? I say idea, not caprice, because it has seemed to me, and seems still, a very serious matter."

"How can I tell? Are we able to explain our ideas or caprices, or whatever you choose to call them? Have you never contradicted yourself? One thinks one way to-day, another to-morrow. Are we masters of ourselves? You said a minute ago, 'If I were another man.' I understood what you meant; that if you had been another man you would have ill-treated, insulted me. But, on the contrary, you are very kind—perhaps kinder than before. Can you explain to yourself why, instead of hating me for the trick I have played you, you care for me perhaps more than before?"

She spoke not entirely of conviction; but she wished to suggest to Antonio the line he had better take. She believed she had succeeded, for he became thoughtful as if repeating her questions to himself, and presently said with a slight smile—

"Well, I dare say you are right!"

"Don't let us say any more about it," cried Regina, imitating the Master again. "It has been a freak—a folly of youth. Let us draw a veil over the past."

"You know you have humiliated me," urged Antonio; "it was a blow in my face—a betrayal—and besides——"

"Oh, don't we all make mistakes? What about all the other women? Those who really betray their husbands?"

"Yes," he answered her, quickly, "and the husbands who betray their wives! Generally it's the bad husband who makes the bad wife. But I never gave you any cause, Regina! What had you to complain of in me? True enough I am not a lord, but you knew that from the first. Had I promised you more than I could give? Well, you should have had patience—confidence. Our circumstances may improve any day. I shall never be rich, but, of course, in a little time my position must alter to a certain extent——"

"Oh, that'll do! That's enough," protested Regina. "You did not guess that my fancy would pass away so soon?"

"Did you think it yourself when you wrote? My dear, things seriously done have serious effects. Well, we will cancel the past, as the Master says. I've got one thing to tell you, however. Your letter has done us some good after all. I saw at once that in one sense you were right. Everybody has to try to get on, to push, to solicit, to intrigue, 'Out with you, sir, in with me!' and all that. 'Come,' I said to myself, 'isn't it just possible I might do something?' Well, I began my solicitations. I set Arduina to work. I had her running about the town all day. I sent her to the Senator, the Princess, to her journalists and deputies——"

"Of course you didn't tell her——" interrupted Regina.

"I told her no more than this: 'I want to be secretary to some Minister. Find me a berth, and I'll get you six subscribers to your paper among my colleagues.' She laughed and went to work, and I set others in motion too. But it was all no good; there wasn't a vacant post anywhere. Then Arduina gave me an idea. You remember how the Princess sent for me one day to ask information about the Stock Exchange, and how I saw she was beginning to be suspicious of Cavaliere R——? Well, Arduina, who is no fool at bottom, sounded Marianna. She found out it was just as I thought. She wanted to put some one to look over his shoulder. 'Why shouldn't you become her confidential agent?' said Arduina. So I went to the Princess and offered my services. I said the office of a spy did not seem to me very delicate, but that I would accept it, as it was a case of urgent necessity. She convinced me that the indelicacy was on the Cavaliere's part, and said that if I succeeded in being useful she would be most grateful. That was on the 5th. Four days later I proved that the Cavaliere R—— was speculating with her money more for himself than for her."

"How did you manage it?" asked Regina, vaguely uneasy at Antonio's relation.

"I will explain. You must know that Madame, for all her riches, is as ignorant as a child about money affairs. She doesn't understand a thing about banking, stocks, shares, book-keeping, and so forth, and naturally has to put herself entirely into the hands of some person who acts for her, and to accept all propositions and all results of operations without any control. The Cavaliere R—— has been serving her in this way for many years, and no doubt at first he was perfectly scrupulous in his operations and in the statement of accounts. But presently, aware that she knew nothing whatever about these affairs and accepted with her eyes shut whatever he chose to say, he thought he might profit without even risk of being found out. Marianna, however, has been observing for some time that the proceeds of the speculations have kept continually diminishing, which the Cavaliere accounted for by the special conditions of the money market, by monetary crises, by the rupture of commercial contracts, by the war, etc. At her instigation, Madame made me the proposition I told you of. Well, as she pressed me, I accepted the job, and told her to put me in full possession of some recent transaction that I might verify it. Next morning Madame sent me one of his statements, on which I read, among other things—

"'Exchange of 10000.00 marks, at 123.20 lire; acquired 8 shares of Acqua Marcia at 1465.00 lire.'

"I consulted at the office the prices on the Exchange reported in the Gazzetta Ufficiale and found it was different from what he had put down. Not satisfied with this, at lunch-time I went to the Chamber of Commerce and got a list of the Exchanges of the preceding day, and made certain of the difference I had already made out: the Berlin Exchange was at 123.37 lire, and the shares of Acqua Marcia were quoted at 1460.00 lire. Consequently, Cavaliere R—— had put 57 lire into his own pocket. Then I made Madame give me all his statements up to the end of June, which she had kept mixed up with her private letters and newspapers. By the help of the bulletins of the Exchange and other publications which I got through a stock-broker I know, I proved that in these operations alone the man had made a profit of 137.45 lire."

"And then?"

"Oh, then Madame thanked me very warmly and said she'd take the opportunity of her going away to relieve the Cavaliere of his services, and on her return would ask me to undertake the speculating. She left home on the 12th, and has given me a whole lot of matters to disentangle before her return. I must look up my German a bit, for she has no end of business with Germany."

Instinctively, Regina took her hand away from Antonio's, and said—

"Well?"

"Well?" repeated Antonio.

"How much is she to pay you?"

"For the present, a hundred lire a month; but a little later, you see, I'm to become her factotum. I must grind at the German," he repeated, seeming much pre-occupied with this question of the language. He talked on about it, but Regina was no longer listening.

"Let's go back!" she said, turning suddenly. "You must be tired! Toscana! Gigi! Shall we go in? Here they come! Antonio, it's a funny thing, but, do you know, I dreamt something very like this the first night I was here."

She told her dream of the ten thousand lire, Marianna, and the fireman.

"There's no doubt at all that dreams are very queer things!"

He made no reply.

"And why," asked Regina, after a moment of hesitation, "why didn't you write to me?"

"What was I to write to you? You had settled the question for yourself. I wished to settle it in another manner, and a discussion by letter seemed useless. Besides, I had decided to come to you here."

Antonio's explanation was rather lame, but Regina did not insist. He went on to describe his plans for the future.

"Next year I'll go up for the examination and pass at latest in October. Meantime, we can count on 325 lire the month, net and certain. You see, our position is already a little better. I have sub-let the Apartment, and I've seen a capital mezzanino, in Via Balbo, for 80 lire. Three first-rate rooms looking on the street, and one, a large one, on the courtyard; all very light and sunny. We can have two drawing-rooms."

Regina listened, but she felt something which was not joy. Antonio's news was not altogether cheering, and his voice seemed entirely changed. It was the monotonous, distant voice of one not the merry and happy Antonio of old. It moved her to positive pity.

Two drawing-rooms! Yes, she understood his pre-occupation. He wanted to give her something of what in her infatuation she had dreamed, in her foolishness had asked. He wanted to give her at least the illusion that she was a fine lady, prosperous and fashionable. And he made his offer quite humbly, as if he were the guilty one, ready for any weakness, if only he might be forgiven! She would have preferred a tragedy of reproaches, and then the sweetness of pardon; a storm which would leave their domestic heaven clearer than before.

On the other hand, she realised that Antonio's love was blinder, more abject, than she had imagined; in this, at least, there was some satisfaction.

They walked towards the house, so absorbed in their prosy talk that they no longer noticed the mystery of the hot, sweet night brooding over the colourless river, the dark sky, the motionless black woods, like the profile of a forest sculptured on a bronze bas-relief.

From time to time flashed the violet gleam of a bicycle lamp, which went silently by, preceded by a big butterfly of shadow. At intervals a few voices vibrated in the silence and immobility of the sleeping world. The magic of dream floated in the warm, soft air. But the young pair no longer felt the magic. Antonio was hot about his plans; Regina overcome by pity for the man whom her folly had so miserably and so profoundly changed.