So he turned his back upon Villa F'loriano, and. set off,
high-hearted, up the wide lawns, under the bending trees
--whither, on four red-marked occasions, he had watched her
disappear--towards the castle, which faced him in its vast
irregular picturesqueness. There were the oldest portions,
grimly mediaeval, a lakeside fortress, with ponderous round
towers, meurtrieres, machiolations, its grey stone walls
discoloured in fantastic streaks and patches by weather-stains
and lichens, or else shaggily overgrown by creepers. Then
there were later portions, rectangular, pink-stuccoed, with
rusticated work at the corners, and, on the blank spaces
between the windows, quaint allegorical frescoes, faded, half
washed-out. And then there were entirely modern-looking
portions, of gleaming marble, with numberless fanciful
carvings, spires, pinnacles, reliefs--wonderfully light, gay,
habitable, and (Peter thought) beautiful, in the clear Italian
atmosphere, against the blue Italian sky.
"It's a perfect house for her," he said. "It suits her--like
an appropriate garment; it almost seems to express her."
And all the while, as he proceeded, her voice kept sounding in
his ears; scraps of her conversation, phrases that she had
spoken, kept coming back to him.
One end of the long, wide marble terrace had been arranged as a
sort of out-of-door living-room. A white awning was stretched
overhead; warm-hued rugs were laid on the pavement; there were
wicker lounging-chairs, with bright cushions, and a little
table, holding books and things.
The Duchessa rose from one of the lounging-chairs, and came
forward, smiling, to meet him.
She gave him her hand--for the first time.
It was warm--electrically warm; and it was soft--womanly soft;
and it was firm, alive--it spoke of a vitality, a temperament.
Peter was sure, besides, that it would be sweet to smell; and
he longed to bend over it, and press it with his lips. He
might almost have done so, according to Italian etiquette.
But, of course, he simply bowed over it, and let it go.
"Mi trova abbandonata," she said, leading the way back to the
terrace-end. There were notes of a peculiar richness in her
voice, when she spoke Italian; and she dwelt languorously on
the vowels, and rather slurred the consonants, lazily, in the
manner Italian women have, whereby they give the quality of
velvet to their tongue. She was not an Italian woman; Heaven
be praised, she was English: so this was just pure gain to the
sum-total of her graces. "My uncle and my niece have gone to
the village. But I 'm expecting them to come home at any
moment now--and you'll not have long, I hope, to wait for your
snuff."