‘Carina, forgive me!’ he exclaimed in great distress, thereby making bad worse. He stopped again. ‘It is unwise; we had better not talk. I wish to spare your feelings, not to hurt them,’ he said quickly. ‘I will return now. Good-night.’ He refrained from even holding out his hand. Fulvia, with a white face and a wan smile, bowed her head, returned his valediction almost in a whisper, then darted onwards at a rapid pace. Soon she turned a corner, and was hidden from his view by a great clump of immense evergreen trees. Signor Giuseppe turned back and went homewards. His head was sunk, his hands were clasped behind him, his walk was dejected. ‘If I might go away while she is here--go away, and not see it all!’ was the thought in his heart, which was filled to bursting with a great pain and a great anger. ‘Coward!’ then he told himself. ‘In spite of her white face, and her grief at my stupid mistake, I know that she prefers me to be here. If she were asked, she would not have me go. Ah, poverina! I wonder if she thinks I do not know--a stupid old fellow, engrossed in his studies, who cannot understand a young human heart, and its pain and its woe and its peril. Can I not see that heart, and understand both its weakness and its strength? Do I not know that she has fronted the storm, and come through it strong and proud, entitled to mock at weaker ones? Poor Minna is always pained by what she thinks my child’s cynicism--a skin-deep cynicism. Altro! She is steeled to meet all misfortune with a smile, that superb smile which only they smile who have gone through the worst, and who know that all else which may befall them is but trivial. Grief and hatred and unhappiness will neither bend nor break her--she is used to them and despises them. But love, but worship, but adoration from one whom she too could love--ah!’ He raised his head, and looked up into the deep-blue sky, with its rolling white clouds, and thought deeply, as if trying to recollect something. Then-- ‘Yes, I remember--a lesson lies before her when she could so well do with a respite. She is like my Rome, described by the historian from whom Minna long ago read me the description of its walls--a mighty city and a strong, defended on three sides by nature as well as art, but on the fourth, where there was “no river to embank, no cliff to scarp,” weak and vulnerable. Servius made it strong by artificial means--the city. And she too--per Dio! A mighty defence am I, and a virtuous example!’ He laughed sarcastically at his own reflections as he entered the house. CHAPTER XX.