Antonio listened, but seemed not to understand. He found a bottle of benzine, and helped Regina to clean her dress, then put everything back in its place, threw his arm round her waist, and made her run with him up the stair, careless of her stumbles, deaf to all protests and reproaches. Thus they entered the garden, and Regina recovered her calm. The sinking sun gilded half the expanse, leaving the rest in deep shadow. The wind passed high up over the tops of the laurels, which were garlanded with white roses. From time to time a rain of rose-leaves, of lime-blossom, of wistaria, circled down through the hot air and fell on the paths. Regina and her husband sat in a green corner close to a hermes, on which was an archaic head. Black, hard, epicene, it had a complacent and sarcastic smile. "He thinks us a pair of lovers," said Regina, remarking the expression. "No, my dear fellow, I assure you we are enemies!" "And why?" asked Antonio, coldly. Then a recollection shot through Regina's mind. "Do you remember that day in the woods, two years ago, when you--had come for me? There were so many blue butterflies, just like these wistaria blossoms----" She laughed meaningly. Did he remember? And the remembrance of that hour of pleasure passed in the mystery of the damp, hot woods the day after his coming to Regina's home, after her flight and their reconciliation, seemed to reawaken him to passion. The childish gaiety which had animated him a few minutes before passed into a nervous tenderness, and this time it was he who sought the lips of his wife in a kiss, which reminded her of his kisses _then_. And her doubts tormented her more than ever. At sunset-time they went back into the house, but they did not yet go away. They wandered through the rooms abandoning themselves to childish extravagances. They ran about in the dark, and Regina, wailing over her dress, amused herself spitefully moving the furniture which Antonio put back into order. Now and then they renewed their lover-like caresses. The warmth of the spring sunset came through the closed shutters and set Antonio's blood on fire. Regina found a perverse pleasure in enjoying the tenderness of her young husband there where she suspected he had stained the purity of his love. Turbid poison was boiling in her soul. When Antonio kissed her, and trembled under her unaccustomed kisses, she fixed wild eyes on the dark corners, on the opaque brilliance of the veiled mirrors, trying to penetrate into the secrets of their vanished reflections. It seemed to her that the phantasm of "the old moon," of the purchaser of kisses, was there in the depth of some looking-glass, gnawing herself with jealousy and rage at the sight of Antonio giving his wife caresses, a single one of which all her millions was not sufficient to buy.