Marcello smiled.

“I do not love Aurora now,” he said.

“But you have, for you talked to her in your fever, and perhaps you will again, or perhaps you wish to marry her.  How can I tell what you think?  She is prettier than I, for she has fair hair.  I knew she had.  I hate fair women, but they are prettier than we dark things ever are.  All men think so.  What does it matter?  It was I that saved your life when you were dying, and the people meant you to die.  I shall always have that satisfaction, even when you are tired of me.”

“Say never, then!”

“Never?  Yes, if I let you stay here, you will not have time to be tired of me, for you will grow thinner and whiter, and one day you will be breathing, and not breathing, and breathing a little again, and then not breathing at all, and you will be lying dead with your head on my arm.  I can see how it will be, for I thought more than once that you were dead, just like that, when you had the fever.  No!  If I let that happen you will never be tired of me while you are alive, and when you are dead Aurora cannot have you.  Perhaps that would be better.  I would almost rather have it so.”

“Then why should we go away?” asked Marcello, smiling a little.

“Because to let you die would be a great sin, much worse than losing my soul for you, or killing some one to keep you.  Don’t you see that?”

“Why would it be worse?”

“I do not know, but I am sure it would.  Perhaps because it would be losing your soul instead of mine.  Who knows?  It is not in the catechism.  The catechism has nothing about love, and I never learned anything else.  But I know things that I never learned.  Every woman does.  How?  The heart says them, and they are true.  Where shall we go to-morrow?”

“Do you really want to leave Paris?”

To impress upon him that she was in earnest Regina squeezed his hands together in hers with such energy that she really hurt him.

“What else have I been saying for half an hour?” she asked impatiently.  “Do you think I am playing a comedy?” She laughed.  “Remember that I have carried you up and down stairs in my arms,” she added, “and I could do it again!”

“If you insist on going away, I will walk,” Marcello answered with a laugh.

She laughed too, as she rose to her feet.  He put out his hand to fill his glass again, but she stopped him.

“No,” she said, “the wine keeps you awake, and makes you think you are stronger than you are.  You shall sleep to-night, and to-morrow we will go.  I am so glad it is settled!”

She could do what she would with him, and so it turned out that Marcello left Paris without going to see the Contessa and Aurora; and when he was fairly away he felt that it was a relief not to be able to see them, since it would have been his duty to do so if he had stayed another day.  Maddalena dell’ Armi had not believed that he would come, but she stopped at home that afternoon on the bare possibility.  Aurora made up her mind that if he came she would shut herself up in her own room.  She expected that he would certainly call before the evening, and was strangely disappointed because he did not.