"And it's my voice too, and Antonio's!" thought Regina, and sometimes the crowd still disgusted her, but her disgust was tempered by compassion. Returning home, she still saw the melon-seller, the fat misanthrope, the nurse, and the girl with the red frock; but above all the thin singing woman, who was probably hungry, and the daughter of joy with the thoughtful, the pure face. She fancied that Antonio had glanced at the latter with a certain interest, and she thought: "Can they have known each other once?" But she felt no resentment, only great compassion for the lost girl, for Antonio, for herself, and for all the unconscious ones, the rich or the wretched, for all the sadness and the weariness of men, which gurgled forth from the blood-coloured cup of the ambulating gramaphone. Sometimes Antonio and Regina sat on a bench at the bottom of the avenue in the shadow. He seemed overcome by depression and fatigue. She watched dreamily the great coloured eyes of the tram, the course of the newspaper carts, carrying to the station their load of glory and of gossip, the going and coming of the people, the shadows of the trees, the clouds which rose up from the silver depths of the horizon. White and tender the moon looked down from heaven. Music of mandolines and violins throbbed and vibrated, a neighbouring bell tolled, a distant trumpet sounded. "They all make music!" observed Regina. "The whole world seems holiday-making and merry." "On the contrary, according to you it's sad," said Antonio, not without irony. "No; it's worse than sad! It's miserable, and I am very sorry for it!" He made no reply. Since their re-union he did not controvert the melancholy speeches of his wife on those occasions, infrequent now, when she allowed herself to be depressed. * * * * * In September Regina perceived that the old miller's prophecy had come true. She was to be a mother. The fact was not particularly agitating, certainly not displeasing, either to her or to her husband. It occasioned, however, a small dispute between them, for Antonio declared at once that the child must have a nurse, while Regina was for bringing it up herself. "Too much worry," he said, almost roughly. "Well, have we the means to pay for a nurse?" "We have," he affirmed, shortly. The year passed. Nothing extraordinary happened. During the winter Regina went out little and scarcely saw any one. She did not visit her mother-in-law, finding an excuse in the stairs. When Arduina came to look for her, she bade the maid say she was not at home. She was aware of her own ingratitude, since after all it was Arduina who had got Antonio his post with the Princess; but she could not overcome her antipathy to her husband's whole family.