Though she seems to have recovered her calm, Regina now and then stops as if overcome by physical pain. She cannot go on; something is pulling her back. But presently the fascination, the attraction of home draws her on, forces her to hasten. She walks on and on almost instinctively, like the horse who _feels_ the place where rest and fodder are awaiting him. At the corner where Via Viminale is crossed by Via Principe Amedeo, she stops as usual to look at the hats in the milliner's window. She wants a mid-season hat. There is the very one! Of silvery-green straw, trimmed with delicate pale thistles--a perfect poem of spring! But a dark shadow falls over her eyes the moment she perceives she has stopped. For hats, for silk petticoats, for all such miserable things, splendid and putrescent like the slough of a serpent, for these things he---- But the thought interrupts itself. No! no! Not a word of it is true! One should have proof before uttering such calumnies! Walk on Regina! Hurry! It is noon. _He_ must have come back. Luncheon is ready! And if none of it is true? Will he not notice her agitation? Can she possibly hide it? And if none of it is true? He will suffer. Again she will make him suffer for no reason. Here she is, pitying him! Guilty or not, he is worthy of pity. Instinctively she pities him, because the guilt has come home to herself. Via Torino, Via Balbo, crooked, deserted, flecked with shadows from the trees in a little bird-haunted garden; a picture of distant houses against the blue, blue background; a rosy-grey cloud, fragment of mother-o'-pearl, sailing across the height of heaven--how sweet is all that! Regina descends the street swiftly, goes swiftly up the stair, her heart beats, her skirts rustle; but she no longer cares. Antonio has not come in. Baby is asleep. Regina goes to her bedroom, all blue, large and fresh in the penumbra of the closed shutters. She is hot, and as she undresses her heart beats strongly, but no longer with grief. At last she has awaked from a bad dream! or she has been suffering some acute bodily pain, which is now over. There is Antonio's step upon the stair! She hears it as usual with joy. Now the familiar sound of his latch-key! Now the occult breath of life and joy which animates the whole house when he enters it! "You've come in? What a lovely day! And Caterina?" "She's asleep." He takes off his hat and light overcoat, and flings them on the bed. Regina lifts her skirts from the floor, and is hanging them up, when she feels Antonio pass quite close and touch her with that breath of life, of youth and beauty, which he always sheds around him. "Good God! I have had a hideous dream!" she thinks, bathing her burning face before joining him at the repast. * * * * *