He is not the same man that he was then, and she, the other, ah, how different she was from the Signora Evelina!  How modest and shy she was!  How girlishly reserved, even in the expression of her love!  How beautiful were her sudden blushes, how sweet the droop of her long, shyly-lowered lashes!  He had known her first in the intimacy of her own home, simple, shy, a good daughter and a good sister, as she was destined to be a good wife and mother.  For a while he had loved her in silence, and she had returned his love.  One day, walking beside her in the garden, he had seized her hand with sudden impetuosity, and raising it to his lips had said, “I care for you so much!” and she, pale and trembling, had run to her mother’s arms, crying out, “Oh, how happy I am!”

Ah, those dear days—­those dear days!  He was a poet then; with the accent of sincerest passion he whispered in his love’s ear: 

     “I love thee more than all the world beside,
        My only faith and hope thou art,
      My God, my country, and my bride—­
        Sole love of this unchanging heart!”

Very bad poetry, but deliciously thrilling to his young betrothed.  Oh, the dear, dear days!  Oh, the long hours that pass like a flash in delightful talk, the secrets that the soul first reveals to itself in revealing them to the beloved, the caresses longed for and yet half feared, the lovers’ quarrels, the tears that are kissed away, the shynesses, the simplicity, the abandonment of a pure and passionate love—­who may hope to know you twice in a lifetime?

No, Signora Evelina can never restore what he has lost to Signor Odoardo.  No, this self-possessed widow, who, after six months of mourning, has already started on the hunt for a second husband, cannot inspire him with the faith that he felt in the other.  Ah, first-loved women, why is it that you must die?  For the dead give no kisses, no caresses, and the living long to be caressed and kissed.

Who talks of kisses?  Here is one that has alit, all soft and warm, on Signor Odoardo’s lips, rousing him with a start.—­Ah!...Is it you, Doretta?—­It is Doretta, who says nothing, but who is longing to make it up with her daddy.  She lays her cheek against his, he presses her little head close, lest she should escape from him.  He too is silent—­what can he say to her?

It is growing dark, and the eyes of the cat Melanio begin to glitter in the corner by the stove.  The man-servant knocks and asks if he is to bring the lamp.

“Make up the fire first,” Signor Odoardo says.