I give
in. Let us talk of it no more."
He touched her on the shoulder like a good comrade, half
amused and half penitent, and then, murmuring and smiling to
himself, ran quietly out of the room.
Perfetta burst into congratulations. "What courage you
have!" she cried; "and what good fortune! He is angry no
longer! He has forgiven you!"
Neither Perfetta, nor Gino, nor Lilia herself knew the
true reason of all the misery that followed. To the end he
thought that kindness and a little attention would be enough
to set things straight. His wife was a very ordinary woman,
and why should her ideas differ from his own? No one
realized that more than personalities were engaged; that the
struggle was national; that generations of ancestors, good,
bad, or indifferent, forbad the Latin man to be chivalrous
to the northern woman, the northern woman to forgive the
Latin man. All this might have been foreseen: Mrs. Herriton
foresaw it from the first.
Meanwhile Lilia prided herself on her high personal
standard, and Gino simply wondered why she did not come
round. He hated discomfort and yearned for sympathy, but
shrank from mentioning his difficulties in the town in case
they were put down to his own incompetence. Spiridione was
told, and replied in a philosophical but not very helpful
letter. His other great friend, whom he trusted more, was
still serving in Eritrea or some other desolate outpost.
And, besides, what was the good of letters? Friends cannot
travel through the post.
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