To his surprise, Aurora turned and looked at him very quietly.
"I wonder whether I shall like you, when you are a man," she said in a
tone of profound reflection. "I am rather ashamed of liking you now,
because you are such a baby."
He flushed again, very angry this time, and he moved away to leave her,
without another word.
She turned her face to the storm and took no notice of him. She thought
that he would come back, but there was just the least doubt about it,
which introduced an element of chance and was perfectly delightful while
it lasted. Was there ever a woman, since the world began, who did not
know that sensation, either by experience or by wishing she might try
it? What pleasure would there be in angling if the fish did not try to
get off the hook, but stupidly swallowed it, fly and all? It might as
well crawl out of the stream at once and lay itself meekly down in the
basket.
And Marcello came back, before he had taken four steps.
"Is that what you meant when you said that you might never come here
again?" he asked, and there was something rough in his tone that pleased
her.
"No," she answered, as if nothing had happened. "Mamma talked to me a
long time last night."
"What did she say?"
"Do you want to know?"
"Yes."
"There is no reason why I should not tell you. She says that we must not
come here after I go into society, because people will think that she is
trying to marry me to you.
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