But Ferragut did not take into consideration the unsuitableness of all this luxury.  Everything about her appeared to him admirable.

Without knowing just how, he began to talk.  He was astonished at hearing his own voice, saying always the same thing in different words.  His thoughts were incoherent, but they were all clustered around an incessantly repeated statement,—­his love, his immense love for Freya.

And Freya continued marching on in silence with a compassionate expression in her eyes and in the corners of her mouth.  It pleased her pride as a woman to contemplate this strong man stuttering in childish confusion.  At the same time she grew impatient at the monotony of his words.

“Don’t say any more, Captain,” she finally interrupted.  “I can guess all that you are going to say, and I’ve heard many times what you have said,—­You do not sleep—­you do not eat—­you do not live because of me.  Your existence is impossible if I do not love you.  A little more conversation and you will threaten me with shooting yourself, if I am not yours....  Same old song!  They all say the same thing.  There are no creatures with less originality than you men when you wish something....”

They were in one of the avenues of the promenade.  Through the palm trees and glossy magnolias the luminous gulf could be seen on one side, and on the other the handsome edifices of the beach of Chiaja.  Some ragged urchins kept running around them and following them, until they took refuge in an ornamental little white temple at the end of the avenue.

“Very well, then, enamored sea-wolf,” continued Freya; “you need not sleep, you need not eat, you may kill yourself if the fancy strikes you; but I am not able to love you; I shall never love you.  You may give up all hope; life is not mere diversion and I have other more serious occupations that absorb all my time.”

In spite of the playful smile with which she accompanied these words, Ferragut surmised a very firm will.

“Then,” he said in despair, “it will all be useless?...  Even though I make the greatest sacrifices?...  Even though I give proofs of love greater than you have ever known?...”

“All useless,” she replied roundly, without a sign of a smile.

They paused before the ornamental little temple-shaped building, with its dome supported by white columns and a railing around it.  The bust of Virgil adorned the center,—­an enormous head of somewhat feminine beauty.

The poet had died in Naples in “Sweet Parthenope,” on his return from Greece and his body, turned to dust, was perhaps mingled with the soil of this garden.  The Neapolitan people of the Middle Ages had attributed to him all kinds of wonderful things, even transforming the poet into a powerful magician.  The wizard Virgil in one night had constructed the Castello dell’ Ovo, placing it with his own hands upon a great egg (Ovo) that was floating in the sea.  He also had opened with his magic blasts the tunnel of Posilipo near which are a vineyard and a tomb visited for centuries as the last resting place of the poet.  Little scamps, playing around the railing, used to hurl papers and stones inside the temple.  The white head of the powerful sorcerer attracted them and at the same time filled them with admiration and fear.