d governess, God
bless her! If ever a man had a right to take back his word, you have.
Take it, if you will. You are free!'

Giovanni stood up beside her, almost angry.

'Do you think I wanted your fortune?' he asked, a little pale under
his tan.

'Do you think I am afraid of poverty?'

Her lips were still parted in a smile after she had asked the
question, and with the gesture of an older woman she tapped his arm
half reproachfully. The colour came back to his brown face.

'I fear poverty for you,' he answered, 'and I am going to fight it for
your sake if you have the courage to wait for me. Have you?'

'I will wait for ever,' she said simply as she laid her hand in his.

'Then I shall leave the army at once,' he replied. 'So far, I have
made what is called a good career, but promotion is slow and the pay
is wretched until a man is very high up. An artillery officer is an
engineer, you know, and a military engineer can always find well-paid
work, especially if he is an electrician, as I am. In two years I
promise you that we shall be able to marry and be at least
comfortable, and there is no reason why I should not make a fortune
quite equal to what my father has lost.'

He spoke with the perfect confidence of a gifted and sanguine man,
sure of his own powers, and his words pleased her. Perhaps what had
attracted her most in him from the beginning had been his enthusiasm
and healthy faith in the world, which had contrasted brilliantly with
her father's pessimism and bigoted political necrolatry, if I may coin
a word from the Greek to express an old-fashioned Roman's blind
worship of the dead past.

Angela was pleased, as any woman would have been, but she protested
against what she knew to be a sacrifice.

'No,' she said decidedly, 'you must not give up the army and your
career for the sake of making money, even for me. Do no officers marry
on their pay? I am sure that many do, and manage very well indeed. You
told me not long ago that you were expecting promotion from day to
day; and in any case I could not marry you within a year, at the
least.'

'If I do not begin working at once, that will be just a year lost,'
objected Giovanni.

'A year! Will that make much difference?'

'Why not ten, then? As if a year would not be a century long, while I
am waiting for you--as if it were not already half a lifetime since
last month, when we told each other the truth! Wait? Yes, if I must;
for ever, as you said