the street, and when he was back in his own room, positively threw up
his arms and opened his eyes wide in his amazement.

'Well,' he thought, 'well, _now_ life is going round in a whirl! And
it's whirling so that I'm giddy.' He did not attempt to look within,
to realise what was going on in himself: it was all uproar and
confusion, and that was all he knew! What a day it had been! His lips
murmured unconsciously: 'Wilful ... her mother says ... and I have got
to advise her ... her! And advise her what?'

Sanin, really, was giddy, and above all this whirl of shifting
sensations and impressions and unfinished thoughts, there floated
continually the image of Gemma, the image so ineffaceably impressed on
his memory on that hot night, quivering with electricity, in that dark
window, in the light of the swarming stars!




XXIV


With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora
Roselli. His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even
heard it thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should
he begin? He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the
back entrance. In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was
both relieved and scared at the sight of him.

'I have been expecting you,' she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand