After the Pardon. Matilde Serao

smiled joyfully, a smile which he did not observe.

      “I renounced him, his name and his fortune for you,” she replied simply.

      “Do you regret it?” he asked, still hot with anger, but somewhat distractedly.

      “I do not regret it,” she replied, after an imperceptible moment of hesitation.

      “But, Maria, I am sure he regrets you very much.”

      “No.”

      “I am as certain as if he had told me, and I am certain he will get you back, Maria.”

      “No.”

      “Yes, he will get you back.”

      “Covering himself with shame?”

      “Yes, because he loves you.”

      “Covering himself with ridicule.”

      “He loves you, he loves you.”

      “Knowing that I do not love him.”

      “What does that matter? He will take you back to try to make you love him.”

      “This is madness.”

      “All those who love are mad,” murmured Marco Fiore very sadly.

      Stupefied and suffering, she looked at him. Each looked at the other as if to recognise themselves. They were the same who, strangely, every day and every evening, scarcely found themselves together without, after a few minutes, involuntarily irritating with curious and cruel fingers the old wounds which seemed to be healing, which their restless and disturbed minds caused to bleed again.

      Here she was, Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti, graceful and exquisite, she who had been the object of a thousand desires, repulsed by her serene austerity and boundless pride, who had suddenly loved Marco Fiore madly and faithfully for three years. Here she was in that house where she had come to live alone, after abandoning the conjugal abode for three years, to live apart in a strange, constant and ardent love, forgetful of every other thing. Here she was, ever more graceful in the plenitude of her womanly grace, in the atmosphere of exclusive luxury with which she was surrounded, and in garments which reflected her fascination.

      And the man, Marco Fiore, young, trembling with life, who had come there that evening, an impassioned lover who had not tolerated sharing the woman of his love with the husband, he had not fallen at her feet, infatuated as usual by his mortal infatuation; he had not taken her to his arms to press her to himself, to kiss her as his own.

      Instead they had given themselves, as for some time, to a sad duel of words, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes angry, evoking the absent figures of the two betrayed, of Vittoria Casalta, Marco’s betrothed, of Emilio Guasco, the husband of Donna Maria.

      Both tried to subdue themselves. She crossed the quiet room, and adjusted some knick-knacks on the pianoforte, which was covered with a peculiar flowered fabric, her profile was bent slightly in a pleasing way beneath the dense shadow of her magnificent hair.

      Marco opened a cigarette case, and asked, with a voice already become expressionless—

      “May I smoke?”

      “Do smoke.”

      “Would you like a cigarette?”

      “No, Marco.”

      She returned to the sofa, throwing herself down gently, and drawing under her head a cushion to support her mass of hair. So they remained for a while, he smoking his cigarette slowly, and she looking at a distant part of the room, her hands stretched along her body.

      “Have you found some place for us, Marco, for August?”

      “I am very uncertain,” he murmured. “In whatever holiday place one goes, however far away, one meets people.”

      “Far too many,” she added.

      “You don’t wish to meet any one?”

      “That is so; I should like not to.”

      “It is impossible, Maria.”

      “People always make me suffer so.”

      “Why, dear?”

      “I don’t know.”

      After an instant he resumed quietly—

      “Let us remain in Rome.”

      She trembled, and raised her eyebrows slightly.

      “In Rome? In Rome in August?”

      “If we can’t go anywhere else,” he added, without noticing Maria’s surprise.

      “You renounce the holiday and travelling which we have had every year, Marco! Do you renounce them willingly?”

      “Willingly,” he replied, with complete resignation.

      Why did he not look her in the face? He would have seen the lines discompose under the wave of bitterness which invaded them, and then suddenly with heroic force recompose themselves. Instead, he only heard a proud, cold voice which accepted the renunciation.

      “Let us remain in Rome.”

      The hard, sharp compact which annulled one of their best dreams, and destroyed one of their intensest joys, was subscribed without any further observation.

      He resumed with a little difficulty.

      “Later on, in September, mamma wants me.”

      “Where, then?”

      “At Spello, you know, at our place, where she passes the autumn.”

      “I know. You have gone there every year for some days; last year for ten days.”

      “This year I ought to stay some days longer.”

      “How many days longer?”

      “Two weeks, perhaps two or three.”

      As usual, on words which he feared would displease her Marco placed a courteous hesitation. He was never precise. He sought always to render the conversation more vague with a sweet smile.

      Maria did not fall into the deception, and replied clearly—

      “But three weeks are not the same as two, Marco.”

      “They are not the same, it is true. I will try to shorten them.”

      “Why remain so long?”

      “My mother requires assistance this year; my brother Giulio is unable to give her any. I don’t like to say it, but my mother is getting older. The business of the house is heavy: there are so many things to regulate and decide. In fact, I neglect my mother a little.”

      “Stop three weeks then,” she said, lowering her eyelids to hide the flash of her proud eyes.

      “And you? What will you do in September in Rome alone?”

      “I shall do what I can,” she said, throwing her head back among the cushions.

      “Poor Maria,” he said slowly.

      There was so much lack of comfort in those two words, so much empty sorrow; in fact, a pity so sterile, that she broke in—

      “Don’t pity me, Marco; I don’t like you to pity me.”

      “Does everything offend you, then, Maria?” he exclaimed, surprised.

      “Pity above everything offends me—every one’s pity; but your pity offers me an atrocious offence.”

      “You are very proud, Maria.”

      “Very, Marco.”

      “Will nothing ever conquer this fatal pride of yours?”

      “Nothing,