The eyes of Imperia and Chigi were intently fixed on Raphael's face, striving to read his true feelings. He felt and resented the scrutiny. "I doubt if the man lives who has not loved," he said, flushing. "Perhaps it is because I love so deeply that I cannot speak of it." Imperia softened for an instant, and, taking a lute, sang, _Quant'e bella giovinezza_.[4] But the pent-up passion that possessed her this evening woke again in the line, _Che si fugge tuttavia_, and she ended suddenly with a dry choking sob. An embarrassing silence fell upon us all, broken finally by Imperia. "A little honesty might clear the atmosphere," she said to Raphael; "besides what need is there of such secrecy when we have all guessed the truth. No, you shall not escort me to Magliana. I will be no man's second choice, not even yours, Agostino," and so saying she ungraciously departed from us. "She is in a devil of a humour," Chigi said to me, uneasily, when Raphael had bidden us good-night. "What can have angered her? Is it possible that she suspects that her reign is over?" "She suspects nothing," I assured him, truthfully; in my heart I added, "but she knows everything." "But will she go?" Chigi asked, anxiously; "that is the immediate question. I cannot put her out by force." "You will never have to do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear. Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their inconstancy, not alone to men but to any fixed idea." In spite of the flippancy with which I had striven to beguile Chigi, I was vaguely but none the less genuinely troubled. Unable to sleep, I strolled toward dawn in the garden. A lamp burned in the tiny room assigned to Margherita, and to my surprise there flitted across the window the shadow of Imperia. What business could she have there at such an hour? Certain expressions, to which I had given no weight at the time of their utterance, came back to me with sinister significance, and especially her declaration that Margherita must disappear, "not for one day, but for ever." I continued my watch until a gust of rain drove me into the house, and I fell asleep to dream that an oubliette lined with the blades of scythes (such as I knew existed in certain old Roman houses) had at Imperia's touch yawned beneath the couch of Margherita; and that the innocent barrier to Raphael's reconciliation with Maria had indeed "dropped from his life." But I awoke at Chigi's cheery halloo to find that the storms of the previous evening had cleared. Imperia had expressed her readiness to spend the day at Magliana, and my host desired me to select horses for the excursion.