Marcello was no youthful Samson, yet he was not an unmanly boy, for all his bringing up.  So far as his strength would allow he had been accustomed to the exercises and sports of men:  he could ride fearlessly, if not untiringly; he was a fair shot; he had hunted wild boar with his stepfather in the marshy lands by the sea; he had been taught to fence and was not clumsy with weapons, though he had not yet any great skill.  He had always been told that he was delicate and must be careful, and he knew that he was not strong; but there was one good sign in that his weakness irritated him and bred at least the desire for strength, instead of the poor-spirited indolence that bears bodily infirmity as something inevitable, and is ready to accept pity if not to ask for it.

The smell of the damp earth was gone, and as the sun shone out the air was filled with the scent of warm roses and the faintly sweet odour of wistaria.  Marcello heard a light footstep close to him, and met his mother’s eyes as he turned.

Even to him, she looked very young just then, as she stood in the light, smiling at him.  A piece of lace was drawn half over her fair hair, and the ends went round her throat like a scarf and fell behind her.  Its creamy tints heightened the rare transparency of her complexion by faint contrast.  She was a slight woman and very graceful.

“I have looked for you everywhere,” she said, and she still smiled, as if with real pleasure at having found him.

“I have been watching the shower” Marcello answered, drawing her to the window.  “And then the earth and the roses smelt so sweet that I stayed here.  Did you want me, mother?”

“I always like to know where you are.”

She passed her arm through his with a loving pressure, and looked out of the window with him.  The villa stood on the slope of the Janiculum, close to the Corsini gardens.

“Do I run after you too much?” the mother asked presently, as if she knew the answer.  “Now that you are growing up, do I make you feel as if you were still a little boy?  You are nearly nineteen, you know!  I suppose I ought to treat you like a man.”

Marcello laughed, and his hand slipped into hers with an almost childish and nestling movement.

“You have made a man of me,” he answered.

Had she?  A shadow of doubt crossed her thoughtful face as she glanced at his.  He was so different from other young men of his age, so delicately nurtured, so very gentle; there was the radiance of maidenly innocence in his look, and she was afraid that he might be more like a girl than a man almost grown.

“I have done my best,” she said.  “I hope I have done right.”

He scarcely understood what she meant, and his expression did not change.

“You could not do anything that was not right,” he answered.