"A storm is coming," he said, looking at the colours in the sunset.
"It has come and gone," she whispered, and then his arm folded closer
about her waist.
It took him half-an-hour to say adieu. After the last kiss and the last
handshake, their arms would stretch out to the utmost limit, and then
close again for another and another and yet another embrace.
XV
When at length Rossi was gone, Roma ran into her bedroom to look at her
face in the glass. The golden complexion was heightened by a bright spot
on either cheek, and a teardrop was glistening in the corner of each of
her eyes.
She went back to the boudoir. David Rossi was no longer there, but the
room seemed to be full of his presence. She sat in the chair again, and
again she stood by the window. At length she opened her desk and wrote a
letter:-
"DEAREST,--You are only half-an-hour gone, and here I am sending
this letter after you, like a handkerchief you had forgotten. I
have one or two things to say, quite matter-of-fact and simple
things, but I cannot think of them sensibly for joy of the
certainty that you love me. Of course I knew it all the time, but
I couldn't be at ease until I had heard it from your own lips; and
now I feel almost afraid of my great happiness. How wonderful it
seems! And, like all events that are long expected, how suddenly
it has happened in the end. To think that a month ago--only a
little month--you and I were both in Rome, within a mile of each
other, breathing the same air, enclosed by the same cloud, kissed
by the same sunshine, and yet we didn't know it!
"Soberly, though, I want you to understand that I meant all I said
so savagely about going on with your work, and not letting your
anxiety about my welfare interfere with you. I am really one of
the women who think that a wife should further a man's aims in
life if she can; and if she can't do that, she should stand aside
and not impede him. So go on, dear heart, without fear for me. I
will take care of myself, whatever occurs. Don't let one hour or
one act of your life be troubled by the thought of what would
happen to me if you should fall. Dearest, I am your beloved, but I
am your soldier also, ready and waiting to follow where my captain
calls: "'Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love!
Think thy thought.' "And if I was not half afraid that you would think it bolder than
is modest in your bride to be, I would go on with the next lines
of my sweet quotation.