“I don’t; neither do you. But when you say so laughing, I can almost believe it.” When we had once again started, she became more frank. It was because my hands were occupied, perhaps. Laying her cheek against my shoulder, “Dante, I’m not a flirt,” she said. “I just can’t make up my mind about you.” “Maybe, I’ll make it up for you.” “Maybe. But I want you to understand why I did what I did this morning--speeding like that and behaving as though I was cracked. I was afraid you were going to make love to me every moment--and I didn’t want it.” “D’you want it now?” “I don’t know.” She dragged the words out wide-apart. “And yet I do know; but I’ve no right to allow it.” “You silly child, why on earth not?” “I’m inconstant; I’m like that now. I should make you happy first and sorry afterwards.” “I’ll risk it. I made you sorry first and now I’m going to make you happy.” “Do you think you are?” “Sure of it.” The road began to descend, at first gradually. The bare, tilled uplands where winter lingered, were left behind and we ran through a sheltered land of orchards. The air pulsated with the baaing of lambs and the sweet yearning of fecundity. Under blown spray of fruit-trees the little creatures gamboled, halting by fits and starts, calling to their mothers, or kneeling beneath them, their thirsty throats stretched up and their long tails flapping. Surrounded by lean trees, lopped of their lower branches, gray farmhouses rose up, watching like aged shepherds. Slowfooted cattle, heavy-uddered, wandered between the hedges with their great bags swinging. Women with brass jars on their shoulders, which narrowed at the neck like funeral urns, walked through the meadows to the milking. “Do we turn or go on?” “Go on.” “How much farther?” “A little farther.” “It’s getting older and older isn’t it, Fiesole?” “No, younger and younger, stupid. Look at all the lambs.” Before us the land piled up into a hillock, breaking the level sweep of sky-line and hiding what lay beyond. The road curved about it in a slow descent. Fiesole leant past me, shutting off the power. “Let her coast,” she said. At the bend in the road I jammed on the brakes, halting the car. She slipped her hand into mine; we filled our eyes with the sight, saying nothing.