"
Miss Abbott laid him tenderly on the couch and wiped his
face. Then she said gravely to them both, "This thing stops
here."
"Latte! latte!" cried Perfetta, hilariously ascending
the stairs.
"Remember," she continued, "there is to be no revenge.
I will have no more intentional evil. We are not to fight
with each other any more."
"I shall never forgive him," sighed Philip.
"Latte! latte freschissima! bianca come neve!"
Perfetta came in with another lamp and a little jug.
Gino spoke for the first time. "Put the milk on the
table," he said. "It will not be wanted in the other
room." The peril was over at last. A great sob shook the
whole body, another followed, and then he gave a piercing
cry of woe, and stumbled towards Miss Abbott like a child
and clung to her.
All through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip
like a goddess, and more than ever did she seem so now.
Many people look younger and more intimate during great
emotion. But some there are who look older, and remote, and
he could not think that there was little difference in
years, and none in composition, between her and the man
whose head was laid upon her breast. Her eyes were open,
full of infinite pity and full of majesty, as if they
discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw unimaginable
tracts beyond. Such eyes he had seen in great pictures but
never in a mortal. Her hands were folded round the
sufferer, stroking him lightly, for even a goddess can do no
more than that.
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