Regina remembered the novel she also had wished to write, with which she was quite out of tune to-day. Her irritation increased. She had recognised the _signorina_ from Sabbioneta in Gabrie's sketch, and resented the pretensions, the ambitions, the dreams of the Master's little daughter. The simple father's delusions were pitiable. Better tear them away and bid him teach his child to make herself a real life, refusing to send her forth into the world where the poor are swallowed up like straws in the pearly whirlpools of the river. But in the faded eyes of the humble school-master she saw such glow of tenderness, of regret, of dream, that she had not the heart to rob him of his only wealth--Illusion. "It's so dreadful to have no more illusions," she said to herself, and added that to-day there would come no telegram from Antonio. As evening came on she again fell a prey to puerile terrors and unwholesome thoughts. She was wrapped in frozen shadows--a mysterious wind drove her towards a glacial atmosphere, where all was dizziness and grief. She seemed suspended thus in a twilight heaven, wafted towards an unknown land, like the little wandering clouds, the violet-grey birds, migrating without hope of rest. The old world to which she had returned had become small, melancholy, tiresome. She was no longer at her ease in it. But at last she was driven to confess a melancholy thing. It was not her old world which had changed; oh no! it was herself. CHAPTER II That night she dreamed she was standing on the river-bank in the company of Marianna, Madame Makuline's companion, who had come to hurry her back to Rome. "Monsieur Antonio is in an awful rage," she said. "He came to Madame and told her all about it, and has borrowed 10,000 _lire_ to set up a finer house. Then he sent me to bring you back." In her dream Regina shook with shame and anger. She set off with rapid steps to Viadana, intending to send Antonio a thundering telegram. "If he has still got the money," she sobbed, "I wish him to give it all back this very moment. I don't want a finer house. I don't want anything! I'll come home at once. I'd come back, even if we had grown poorer, even if we had to live in a garret!" And she walked and walked, as one walks in dreams, vainly trying to run, crushed by unspeakable grief. Night fell; the mist covered the river. Viadana seemed farther and farther. Marianna ran behind Regina, telling her that the day before in Via Tritone she had met the ugly fireman who had rescued her at Odessa. "He had turned into a priest, if you please; but coquettish, and under his cassock he had a silk petticoat with three flounces, which made a _frou-frou_." And she laughed.