He had no sooner disappeared than I turned away from the piano and rose, looking in the signora's eyes to see whether I should go to her or wait for her to come to me. She, too, was standing, and seemed to be trying to read in my face what I was likely to do. But she gave me little encouragement, and as I fancied that her lips were partly open to give me a harsh lesson if I should be unlucky enough to lose my wits in that perilous engagement, I began to feel somewhat disturbed inwardly. I do not know why it was that that exchange of glances, at once alluring and distrustful, that effervescence of our whole being which kept us both as motionless as statues, that alternation of audacity and fear which paralyzed me at what was perhaps the decisive moment of my adventure, and even La Grimani's black velvet gown, and the bright sunlight which shone into the room through the dark curtains and expired in a fantastic blending of light and shadow at our feet--the hour, the burning atmosphere, and the restrained beating of my heart--all combined to bring vividly to my mind an analogous scene of my youth: Signora Bianca Aldini, in the shadow of her gondola, enchaining with a magnetic glance one of my feet on the shore of the Lido, the other on the boat. I felt the same mental bewilderment, the same inward agitation, the same desire, ready to give place to the same wrath. "Can it be," I thought, "that it was self-esteem that made me desire Bianca then, or is it love that makes me desire La Grimani to-day?" It was not possible for me to rush forth into the fields, singing recklessly, as I had on that former occasion leaped ashore on the Lido, to revenge myself for a bit of innocent coquetry. There was no other course for me to adopt than to resume my seat, no other way for me to revenge myself than to begin again on the major fifth: _A-mi-la-E-si-mi_. I must admit that that method of venting my spite could not afford me a signal triumph. An imperceptible smile fluttered about the corners of the signora's mouth when I bent my legs to sit down, and it seemed to me that I could read these pleasant words on her face: "Lelio you are a child."--But, when I abruptly rose again, ready to hurl the piano across the room and fly to her feet, I plainly read these terrible words in her black eye: "Signor, you are a madman." "Signora Aldini," I reflected, "was twenty-two years old, I was fifteen or sixteen; now I am more than twenty-two. That Bianca should govern me absolutely was natural enough, but it is not natural that I should be made a fool of by this girl. So I must be cool." I calmly resumed my seat, saying: "Excuse me, signora, if I look at the clock. I cannot stay long, and this piano seems to be in sufficiently good condition for me to go about my business."