'What did you say?' asked Andrea.
'I asked how you were getting on with Donna Elena.'
Andrea glanced up at the palace. At that moment he seemed to feel a
blank indifference in his heart, the absolute death of desire--the final
renunciation.
'I am following your advice. I have not tried to relight the cigarette.'
'And yet, do you know, in this one instance, I believe it would be worth
while. Have you noticed her particularly? It seems to me that she has
become more beautiful. I cannot help thinking there is something--how
shall I express it?--something new, something indescribable about her.
No, _new_ is not the word. She has gained intensity without losing
anything of the peculiar character of her beauty; in short, she is _more
Elena_ than the Elena of two years ago--the quintessence of herself. It
is, most likely, the effect of her second spring, for I should fancy
she must be hard on thirty. Don't you think so?'
As he listened, Andrea felt the dull ashes of his love stir and kindle.
Nothing revives and excites a man's desire so much as hearing from
another the praises of a woman he has loved too long or wooed in vain. A
love in its death-throes may thus be prolonged as the result of the envy
or the admiration of another; for the disgusted or wearied lover
hesitates to abandon what he possesses or is struggling to possess in
favour of a possible successor.
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