He laughed again as he shook hands and got into the carriage, and Marcello was glad when he was gone, though he was so fond of him.  It was a bore to be told that he was not strong, because it certainly was true, and, besides, even Folco was sometimes a little in the way.

In a week Marcello and Regina were in Venice; a month later they were in Paris.  The invaluable Settimia knew her way about, and spoke French with a fluency that amazed Marcello; she even taught Regina a few of those phrases which are particularly useful at a dressmaker’s and quite incomprehensible anywhere else.  Marcello told her to see that Regina was perfectly dressed, and Settimia carried out his instructions with taste and wisdom.  Regina had arrived in Paris with one box of modest dimensions; she left with four more, of a size that made the railway porters stagger.

One day Marcello brought home a string of pearls in his pocket, and tried to fasten it round her throat; but she would not let him do it.  She was angry.

“Keep those things for your wife!” she said, with flashing eyes and standing back from him.  “I will wear the clothes you buy for me, because you like me to be pretty and I don’t want you to be ashamed of me.  But I will not take jewels, for jewels are money, just as gold is!  You can buy a wife with that stuff, not a woman who loves you!”

Her brows were level and stern, her face grew whiter as she spoke, and Marcello was suddenly aware, for the first time in his life, that he did not understand women.  That knowledge comes sooner or later to almost every man, but many are spared it until they are much older than he was.

“I did not mean to offend you,” he said, in a rather injured tone, as he slipped the pearls into his pocket.

“Of course not,” she answered.  “But you do not understand.  If I thought you did, I would go back to the inn and never see you again.  I should die, but it would not matter, for I should still respect myself!”

“I only wished to please you,” said Marcello apologetically.

“You wish to please me?  Love me!  That is what I want.  Love me as much as you can, it will always be less than I love you, and as long as you can, it will always be less long than I shall love you, for that will be always.  And when you are tired of me, tell me so, heart of my heart, and I will go away, for that is better than to hang like a chain on a young man’s neck.  I will go away, and God will forgive me, for to love you is all I know.”

His kisses closed her flashing eyes, and her lips parted in a faint, expectant smile, that was not disappointed.

So time passed, and Marcello heard occasionally from Corbario, and wrote to him once or twice, when he needed money.  Folco never alluded to Regina, and Marcello wondered whether he guessed that she had left Rome.  He was never quite sure how much Folco knew of his life, and Folco was careful never to ask questions.