Ugenta will come and lunch with us to-morrow? You will find
Elena and Barbarella Viti and my cousin there----'
'At what time?'
'Half-past twelve.'
'Thanks, I will.'
The Princess got out. The footman stood at the carriage door awaiting
further orders.
'Where shall I take you?' Elena asked Sperelli, who had promptly taken
the place of the Princess beside her.
'Far, far away----'
'Nonsense--tell me now,--home?' And without waiting for his answer she
said--'To the Palazzo Zuccari, Trinita de' Monti.'
The footman closed the carriage door and they drove off down the Via
Frattina leaving all the turmoil of the crowd behind them.
'Oh, Elena--after so long----' Andrea burst out, leaning down to gaze
at the woman he so passionately desired and who had shrunk away from him
into the shadow as if to avoid his contact.
The brilliant lights of the shop windows pierced the gloom in the
carriage as they passed, and he saw on Elena's white face a slow
alluring smile.
Still smiling thus, with a rapid movement she unwound the boa from her
neck and cast it over Andrea's head like a lasso, and with that soft
loop, all fragrant with the same perfume he had noticed in the blue fox
of her coat, she drew the young man towards her and silently held up her
lips to his.
Well did those two pairs of lips remember the rapture of by-gone days,
those terrible and yet deliriously sweet meetings prolonged to anguish.
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