he
had no idea in what frame of mind Elena might arrive.

It wanted but two or three minutes now to the hour. His excitement was
so great that he felt half suffocated. He returned to the window and
looked out at the steps of the Trinita. She used always to come up those
steps, and when she reached the top, would halt for a moment before
rapidly crossing the square in front of the Casa Casteldelfina. Through
the silence, he often heard the tapping of her light footsteps on the
pavement below.

The clock struck four. The rumble of carriage wheels came up from the
Piazza di Spagna and the Pincio. A great many people were strolling
under the trees in front of the Villa Medici. Two women seated on a
stone bench beside the church were keeping watch over some children
playing round the obelisk, which shone rosy red under the sunset, and
cast a long, slanting, blue-gray shadow.

The air freshened as the sun sank lower. Farther off, the city stood out
golden against the colourless clear sky, which made the cypresses on the
Monte Mario look jet black.

Andrea started. A shadow stole up the little flight of steps beside the
Casa Casteldelfina leading up from the Piazzetta Mignanelli. It was not
Elena; it was some other lady, who slowly turned the corner into the Via
Gregoriana.

'What if she did not come at all?' he said to himself as he left the
window. Coming away from the colder outside air he felt the warmth of
the room all the more cosy, the scent of the burning wood and the roses
more piercing sweet, the shadow of the curtains and portieres more
delightfully mysterious. At that moment the whole room seemed on the
alert for the arrival of the woman he loved. He imagined Elena's
sensations on entering. It was hardly possible that she should be able
to resist the influence of these surroundings, so full of tender
memories for her; she would suddenly lose all sense of time and reality,
would fancy herself back at one of the old rendezvous, the Elena of
those happy days. Since nothing was altered in the _mise-en-scene_ of
their love, why should their love itself be changed? She must of
necessity feel the profound charm of all these things which once upon a
time had been so dear to her.

And now the anguish of hope deferred created a fresh torture for him.
Minds that have the habit of imaginative contemplation and poetic
dreaming attribute to inanimate objects a soul, sensitive and variable
as their own, and recognise in a