--He would see Donna Maria again in two or
three months--perhaps much sooner; there was no saying. Then he would
resume the broken thread of that love which held for him so many obscure
promises, so many secret attractions. To a man of culture, Donna Maria
Ferres was the Ideal Woman, Baudelaire's _Amie avec des hanches_, the
perfect _Consolatrix_, the friend who can hold out both comfort and
pardon. Though she had marked those sorrowful lines in the volume of
Shelley, she had, most assuredly, said very different words in her
heart. 'I can never be thine!' Why _never_? Ah, there had been too much
passionate intensity for that in the voice in which she answered him
that day in the wood at Vicomile--'I love you! I love you! I love you!'
He could hear her voice now, that never-to-be-forgotten voice!
Stephen knocked at the door. 'May I remind the Signor Conte that it is
three o'clock?'
Andrea rose and passed into the octagonal room to dress. The sun shone
through the lace window screens and sparkled on the Hispano-Mauresque
tiles, the innumerable toilet articles of crystal and silver, the
bas-reliefs on the antique sarcophagus; its dancing reflections
imparting a delightful sense of movement to the air. He felt in the best
of spirits, completely cured, full of the joy and the vivacity of life.
He was inexpressibly happy to be back in his home once more.
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