It was a golden summer’s evening. How well I remember it! I had not seen her for two days. I was finishing my packing. A trunk stood in the middle of the floor partly filled. Over the backs of chairs clothes hung disorderly. Piles of books lay muddled about the carpet, among socks and shirts and underwear. Through the open window from the garden drifted in the rumor of voices and the perfume of roses. The door opened without warning. I was kneeling beside the trunk. Glancing over my shoulder I saw her. She slipped into the room like a ray of sunlight, and stood behind me. She wore a golden dress, gathered in at the waist with a girdle of silver. Her arms, bare from the elbow, hung looped before her with the fingers knotted. I glanced at her a moment. Her face was pale with reproach. Her rebelliousness had departed. Her lips trembled. She looked like a sensitive child, trying not to cry when her feelings had been wounded. This was the true Fiesole I had long suspected, but had never before discovered. We had no use for polite explanations; in the past two months we had lived too near together. She knew what it all meant--the half-filled trunk, the scattered clothing, the piles of books. Feeling ashamed, with a hurried greeting I turned back to my packing. “You’re going.” She spoke in a low voice, with a tremble in it. It filled me with panic desire to be kind to her; yet I dared not trust myself. I did not love her. I kept telling myself that I did not love her. My whole mind and being were pledged to another woman. And yet pity is so near to love that I could not allow myself to touch her. I was mad from the restraint I had suffered. To touch her might result in irreparable folly. Kneeling lower over my trunk, I shifted articles hither and thither, pressed them closer, moved them back to their original places, doing nothing useful, simply trying to keep my hands busy. She watched me. I could not see her, but I felt that behind my back the slow, sweet, lazy smile was curling up the corners of her mouth. I knew just how she was looking--how the eyebrows were twitching and nostrils panting, the long white throat was working. I fixed my mind upon Vi. I was doing this for her. Maybe, if Fiesole had come first, we might have married. But we should not have been happy. I must be true to Vi, I told myself. I was like a man parched with thirst in a burning desert, who sees arise a mirage of green waters and blue palm-trees--and knows it to be a mirage, and yet is tempted. “You were going away without telling me.” Her voice broke. I listened for the sob, but it did not follow. Outside in the garden a thrush awoke; his notes fell like flashing silver, gleaming dimmer and dimmer as they sank into the silence. “You were going away because of me. I would have gone if you had spoken.” Still kneeling, I looked up at her. “Fiesole, I didn’t dare to tell you. Something was said. We had to separate. I thought this way was best.” “Said about me?”