Giovanni could not help glancing quickly at Corona.  She smiled faintly, and her face betrayed no emotion.

“I daresay it will be very pleasant,” she said gently, looking far out over the Campagna.  In the next field the pack was moving away, followed at a little distance by a score of riders in pink; one or two men who had stayed behind in conversation, mounted hastily and rode after the hunt; some of the carriages turned out of the field and began to follow slowly along the road, in hopes of seeing the hounds throw off; the party who were going with Valdarno gathered about the drag, waiting for Donna Tullia; the grooms who were left behind congregated around the men who sold boiled beans and salad; and in a few minutes the meet had practically dispersed.

“Why will you not join us, Duchessa?” asked Madame Mayer.  “There is lunch enough for everybody, and the more people we are the pleasanter it will be.”  Donna Tullia made her suggestion with her usual frank manner, fixing her blue eyes upon Corona as she spoke.  There was every appearance of cordiality in the invitation; but Donna Tullia knew well enough that there was a sting in her words, or at all events that she meant there should be.  Corona, however, glanced quietly at her husband, and then courteously refused.

“You are most kind,” she said, “but I fear we cannot join you to-day.  We are very regular people,” she explained, with a slight smile, “and we are not prepared to go to-day.  Many thanks; I wish we could accept your kind invitation.”

“Well, I am sorry you will not come,” said Donna Tullia, with a rather hard laugh.  “We mean to enjoy ourselves immensely.”

Giovanni said nothing.  There was only one thing which could have rendered the prospect of Madame Mayer’s picnic more disagreeable to him than it already was, and that would have been the presence of the Duchessa.  He knew himself to be in a thoroughly false position in consequence of having yielded to Donna Tullia’s half-tearful request that he would join the party.  He remembered how he had spoken to Corona on the previous evening, assuring her that he would not marry Madame Mayer.  Corona knew nothing of the change his plans had undergone during the stormy interview he had had with his father; he longed, indeed, to be able to make the Duchessa understand, but any attempt at explanation would be wholly impossible.  Corona would think he was inconsistent, or at least that he was willing to flirt with the gay widow, while determined not to marry her.  He reflected that it was part of his self-condemnation that he should appear unfavourably to the woman he loved, and whom he was determined to renounce; but he realised for the first time how bitter it would be to stand thus always in the appearance of weakness and self-contradiction in the eyes of the only human being whose good opinion he coveted, and for whose dear sake he was willing to do all things.  As he stood by her, his hand rested upon the side of the carriage, and he stared blankly at the distant hounds and the retreating riders.