doubt and fear.

During the first days, the anguish of his loss was so cruelly poignant
that he thought he must die of it. His jealousy, lulled to sleep by the
persistent ardour of Elena's affection, awoke now with redoubled vigour,
and the suspicion that a man was at the bottom of this enigmatical
affair increased his sufferings a hundredfold. Sometimes he would be
seized with sullen anger against the absent woman, a bitter rancour,
almost a desire for revenge, as if she had mystified and duped him in
order to give herself to another. Then again he would feel that he did
not long for her, did not love her any more, had never loved her. But
these fits of oblivion were but of short duration. The Spring had come
again to Rome in a riot of colour and sunshine. The city of limestone
and brick absorbed the light as a parched forest the rain, the papal
fountains rose into a limpid sapphire sky, the Piazza di Spagna was
fragrant as a rose-garden, and above the great flight of steps, alive
with little children, the Trinita de' Monti shone in a blaze of gold.

Excited by the re-awakened beauty of Rome, all that still remained of
Elena's fascination in his blood and his spirit revived and re-kindled.
He was stirred to his very depths by sudden invincible pain, by
implacable inward tumults, by indefinable languors, almost like some
strange renewal of his adolescence.

Andrea's liaison with Elena Muti had been perfectly well known, as
sooner or later every adventure and every flirtation becomes known in
Roman society, or the society of any other city for the matter of that.
Precautions are useless. To the initiated a look, a gesture, a smile
suffices to betray the secret. Besides which, in every society there are
certain persons who make it their business in life to ferret out and
follow up the traces of a love affair with an assiduity only to be
equalled by the hunter of rare game. They are ever on the watch, though
not apparently so; never, by any chance, miss a murmured word, the
faintest smile, a tremor, a blush, a lightning glance. At balls or any
large gatherings, where there is more probability of imprudence, they
are ubiquitous, with ear stretched to catch a fragment of dialogue, and
eye keenly on the watch to note a stolen hand-clasp, a tremulous sigh,
the nervous pressure of delicate fingers on a partner's shoulder.

One such terrible trapper, for example, was Don Filippo del Monte. But
to tell the truth, Elena Muti di