Mirko's eyes were fixed on her face; he watched her colour come and go, noted the soft shadow of her lashes on her cheek; the impulse of spring flamed in his blood. The tantalising nearness of the girl was too much for his fiery southern temperament, he was rapidly losing his head. They drove far out over the Campagna, until the city behind them was swallowed up in the undulations of the great grassy plain. Groups of people bound citywards passed them, many of them enlivening the way with snatches of song. A soft damp breeze laden with the composite spring fragrance blew up from the sea. Presently a turn of the road brought them to an old acqueduct; many of the arches lay in ruins, but here and there groups of them still intact, stood upright in the sunshine. Ragna looking at them suddenly remembered her dream on board the _Norje_, and Ingeborg's prediction. Were these the actual stone arches of her dream? She glanced at Mirko; his eyes were devouring her, they had a wolfish expression; a shiver of fear passed over her and she drew her hand from his in a quick gesture of alarm. "Oh, don't look at me like that! You frighten me. Your eyes look like the eyes of a wild beast, as if you wanted to tear me limb from limb." Mirko flushed and his expression changed. "Silly!" he said, but his voice was hoarse and sounded strange in her ears. "Silly! May I not look at you? Do you know that you are very beautiful to-day? I must fill my eyes with your dear image, so that I may have you with me always,--even when you are far away." Ragna partially reassured, glanced at him shyly through her lashes. "You really did frighten me, you looked so fierce, so--so hungry!" He laughed. "I am hungry--hungry for you. But that is nothing new!" They relapsed into silence again, but there was a strange constraint upon them. The sun's rays were very hot with that sickly heat felt just before a shower. The scent of the narcissus rose insistent and too sweet. Ragna felt uneasy; although Mirko was outwardly the same as he had always been, she divined a change in him, a mysterious subtle change that set him over against her as an enemy from whom she must defend herself. She could not explain to herself this newborn antagonism, she only felt it dimly,--and at the same time there arose riotous within her the call of the springtide, urging her towards him. The vetturino drew up jingling before the door of an _osteria_,--that of the "_Sora Nanna_," the sign proclaimed. Some deal tables and benches stood under the budding pergola, and at them a few _contadini_ on their way to the festa were indulging in modest libations of "_vino dei Castelli_"--advertised at thirty, forty and fifty _centesimi_ the measure, on placards hanging at the entrance. As the _botte_ drew up to the door, the hostess, a stout, wholesome looking woman appeared, bowing and wiping her hands on her apron.