Nasi and Checca, reproached me warmly for what she called my exaggerated scruples. "You cannot love me very much," she said, "since you refuse to assist me when I am absolutely determined to compromise myself for you." She said the wildest and most loving words to me, but did not once lose the exquisite instinct of modesty which belongs to all young girls not absolutely devoid of mind. Checchina, who listened to this dialogue from an artistic standpoint, was utterly amazed, so she told me afterward, _della parte della marchesina_. As for Nasi, a score of times I surprised his melancholy gaze fixed upon Alezia and myself with indescribable emotion. Alezia's vehemence became decidedly embarrassing. She called me cold, constrained; she declared that there was no joy, that is to say, no frankness in my glance. She took alarm at my conduct, she waxed indignant at my lack of courage. She was intensely excited, she was as lovely as Domenichino's sibyl. I was very miserable at that moment, for my love reawoke, and I realized the full extent of the sacrifice I must make. A carriage drove into the garden, and we did not hear it, we were talking so earnestly. Suddenly the door opened and Princess Grimani appeared. Alezia uttered a piercing shriek and rushed into her mother's arms, who held her there a long time without speaking; then she fell gasping upon a chair. Her daughter and Lila knelt at her feet and covered her with caresses. I do not know what Nasi said to her, nor what she replied as she pressed his hand. I was rooted to the spot where I stood; I saw Bianca again after ten years. How changed she was! but how touchingly beautiful she still seemed to me, despite the loss of her early bloom! Her great blue eyes, sunken in their orbits which tears had deepened, seemed even softer and sweeter than I remembered them. Her pallor moved me deeply, and her figure, more slender and slightly bent, seemed to me better suited to that loving, weary heart. She did not recognize me; and when Nasi called me by name she seemed surprised; for the name Lelio told her nothing. At last I decided to speak to her; but she had no sooner heard the first word than she sprang to her feet, recognizing me by my voice, and held out her arms to me, crying: "O my dear Nello!" "Nello!" cried Alezia, rising hastily; "Nello the gondolier?" "Did you not know him?" said her mother; "haven't you recognized him until this moment?" "Ah! I understand," said Alezia in a stifled voice, "I understand why he cannot love me!" And she fell at full length on the floor in a swoon.