Facing them, and just rising from his place before a table covered with writing materials, papers, and books, was Signor Oriole, a white-headed, white-bearded man with a pale face, but with thick eyebrows, scarcely touched with the frost of years, and flashing dark eyes, clear and brilliant as ever, belying his look of age. Minna felt Fulvia’s hand spring aside within hers. She divined the shiver of emotion which must be shaking her soul; she quietly released the hand, and, blotting out her presence as much as possible, said simply: ‘Here is Fulvia, signore.’ Fulvia stood, looking pale and rigid still. Mechanically she allowed him to take her hand; they were both very grave as they looked one another in the eyes. Their last interview had been that in which Oriole had offered to take Fulvia away with him and hide them both from her mother’s iron resolution--that in which his whole heart had gone to her, and in which she, white, trembling, agonized, but resolute, had strung herself up to refuse the offer--to stay, and take what should come. At parting she had flung herself into his arms with a wail of despair, and he had strained her to his heart and kissed her without a word. It had been the moment in which they had come nearest to flinging aside all concealment, but they had parted even then without the final word. It could not be that moments such as that were not distinctly present in the consciousness of both. But now, after a few seconds of what seemed paralyzed silence, Fulvia’s figure lost its rigid look. She smiled, just the same sweet, cool smile that Minna knew so well, and said: ‘After so long we meet. It is only a week since I knew you lived here with Mrs. Hastings. Let me tell you, caro signore, I find you look much better here than you used to do in Rome.’ ‘Good heavens! Is that all she has to say?’ muttered Minna beneath her breath. ‘And you, Fulvia, are indeed changed,’ was his reply, as he bent his eyes upon her piercingly, but apparently without much emotion. ‘It is true, you have grown five years older since I saw you--a long time in a young woman’s life.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and bowed over it with courtly, old-fashioned grace. They spoke quietly and steadily, but Minna noticed that they both spoke Italian, and addressed each other in Roman fashion with _voi_ instead of _lei_[A] and she drew her own conclusions from these facts. [A] _Voi_, you; _lei_, thee. The latter is the usual mode of address when any politeness or formality is exacted. The former betokens some familiarity, but is much more used, even by acquaintances, in Southern than in Northern Italy. It did not last much longer. Minna made a move to leave the room, saying she would show Fulvia her bedroom, and send her a cup of tea there. They all moved away. The meeting was over. The emotions, whatever they might have been, had been well choked down, resolutely repressed from motives of common-sense and decent self-control.