While we had been speaking I had been watching her closely. What was it that was changed in her? Was it the voluptuousness of the Italian night that made her more splendidly feminine? She had lost her laughing tone of laziness. Her beauty was strong wine and fire. Something had become earnest in her. Then I asked myself why had she come--was she really on her way to Venice? “I’m jolly glad you came,” I said impetuously; “I’ve been missing you ever since I left.” “And I you.” She took my arm, giving it a friendly hug, just as Ruthita did when she was glad. We walked over to the Piazza Torquato Tasso. Seating ourselves at a table beneath the trees, we called for wine. The light from the trattoria fell softly on her face. The air was dreamy with fragrance of limes. At tables nearby other men and women were sitting. Across the way in the tavern my men-at-arms were still singing and carousing. “What are you thinking?” she asked, leaning across towards me. “I was thinking that I now begin to understand you.” “In what way?” She jerked the question out. It was as though she had flung up her arms to ward off a blow. Her voice panted. “You’ve always puzzled me,” I said. “You are a mixture of ice and fire. The ice is English and the fire is Italian. You’re different to-night.” “How?” “You’re mediaeval. The fire has melted the ice.” She took my hand gratefully and drew me nearer. “Do you like me better?” “Much better. I keep thinking how like you are to Simonetta in The _Kingdom of Venus_. I spent hours sitting before it at the Accademia in Florence. I couldn’t tell what was the attraction. Now I know. It was you I was looking at; you as you are now--not as you were.” “Dante,” she said, “you can see what is beautiful in a painting or a poem, but you can’t see beauty in things themselves. You’re afraid to--you’re afraid of being disillusioned. You see life as reflected in a mirror.” “It’s safer,” I smiled. She took me up sharply. There was pain in what she said. “Ah, yes, safer! You’re always counting the cost and looking ahead for sorrow. You’re a pagan, but fear makes you an ascetic. You have the feeling that joy is something stolen, and you grow timid lest you’re going to be bad.” “That’s true.” “Can’t you believe,” she whispered, “that anything that makes two people happy must be right and best?” “I wish I could.” “And that anything that makes them sad must be wicked?” “Fiesole,” I said, “have you been sad?”