"Yes."

"Perhaps he got back before you started. He walks very fast."

"Perhaps," Corbario said, "but I did not see him. I came to look for you
both."

"Expecting to find us together, of course!" Aurora threw up her head a
little disdainfully, for Marcello had offended her.

"He is generally somewhere near you, poor boy," answered Corbario in a
tone of pity.

"Why do you say 'poor boy' in that tone? Do you think he is so much to
be pitied?"

"A little, certainly." Corbario smiled.

"I don't see why."

"Women never do, when a man is in love!"

"Women"--the flattery was subtle and Aurora's face cleared. Corbario was
a man of the world, without doubt, and he had called her a woman, in a
most natural way, as if she had been at least twenty years old. It did
not occur to her to ask herself whether Folco had any object in wishing
to please her just then, but she knew well enough that he did wish to do
so. Even a girl's instinct is unerring in that; and Corbario further
pleased her by not pursuing the subject, for what he had said seemed all
the more spontaneous because it led to nothing.