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The Countess wished the wedding to take place in July, and Guido agreed to anything that could hasten it. Cecilia said nothing, for she could not believe that she was really to be married.
Cecilia felt relieved, and yet, at the same time, she felt a little girlish disappointment at the thought that Lamberti had hardly ever spoken of her to his most intimate friend, for she was quite sure that Guido told her the exact truth. She was angry with herself for being disappointed, too.
And then made a feint of returning to his book, saying, "Well, I will read in my book again if you are no wiser." But Guido laid his hand upon the pages and protested. "Plague on your reading, brother; you read too much. You are young to be so studious of pothooks and hangers. And here I put in my word.
It is more generally the woman that thinks of them, and points them out because "there is still time!" She also heaps her scorn upon the man if he is wise enough to agree with her; but that is a detail, and perhaps it ought not to be mentioned. As for the fact that he was beginning to be in love, Guido no longer doubted it.
She felt as if she had killed an unresisting, loving creature, as a sacrifice for her fault. "God forgive me if I have done wrong," she said, speaking to herself. "I only mean to do right." Guido moved his head on his cushion again, as if suffering unbearable pain, and a sort of harsh laugh answered her words. "Your God will forgive you," he said bitterly, after a moment.
"He lets me do as I please about such things." "And what has been your pleasure?" asked Guido, with a beginning of interest, as well as for the sake of hearing her young voice, which contrasted pleasantly with her mother's satisfied purring and the Princess's disagreeable tone. "I got the best artist I could find to restore the whole place as nearly as possible to what it was meant to be.
"I suppose I should be bored," he said again, after a short and thoughtful pause, "but I would rather be bored than live the life I am living." The sailor looked at him sharply a moment, and instantly understood that Guido had brought him to the little garden in order to tell him something of importance without risk of interruption.
He laughed rather carelessly as he spoke the last words, and glanced round the table to see whether anybody was watching him. He met the Countess Fortiguerra's approving glance. "Why do you laugh at friendship?" asked Cecilia, not quite pleased. "I do not laugh at friendship at all," Guido answered. "I laugh in order that people may see me and hear me.
But he would have given much not to meet Guido for a day or two, though he did not in the least mind meeting the Countess. Cecilia could keep a secret as well as he himself, almost too well, and there was not the slightest danger that her mother should guess the truth from the behaviour of either of them, even when together.
He had earned his rest, and as he shut his eyes his only wish was that he could have let Cecilia know of the change before he went to sleep. A moment later he was sitting beside her on the bench in the Villa Madama, by the fountain, telling her that Guido was safe at last. When he awoke the sun had risen an hour. "I am like Dante," said Guido to Lamberti, when he was recovering.
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