transport of triumphant joy; throughout the day succeeding it I felt my
wings. "Nunc," I could exclaim with Propertius.

"Nunc mihi summa licet sidera contingere plantis." And that exalted
strain, which was my perdition, alas, was hers also!

That which followed was a very hot still night, with thunder in the
Euganean hills; and Aurelia may have been lax or languid, or in my
miserable person some of the summer's fire may have throbbed. It was
late, near nine o'clock; already old Nonna had given three warnings of
the hour, and was only delaying the last while she stirred the
ingredients of the doctor's minestrone over the fire. The knowledge that
she must come in, and I go out, shortly, at any moment, fretted my quick
senses to fever. I looked for ever at Aurelia with a wildly beating
heart; she, on her side, was aware of my agitation, and breathed the
shorter for the knowledge. She sat by the open window mending a pair of
stays; at her side was her work table, upon that her three-wicked lamp.
I leaned over a chair exactly in front of her, watching every slight
tremor or movement, just as a dog watches a morsel which he longs for
but is forbidden to touch. Thrice a dog that I was! I felt like a dog
that night.

We had read little and spoken less; the airless night forbade it; for
the last half hour no words had passed between us but a faint, "Ah, go
now, go now, Checho," from her, and from me my prayer of "Not yet, not
yet--let me stay with you." Aurelia was tired, and now and again put
down her work with a sigh, to gaze out of the window into the soft deeps
of the night, gemmed as it was with fireflies and wavering moths. How
prone is youth to fatuous conceits! I imagined that she suffered with
me; I identified her pains with mine; I thought that she loved me and