They had been children then.

All at once he felt a great longing to kneel down beside the sofa and throw his arms round her waist and kiss her once again; but at almost the same instant he thought of Regina, waiting for him by the window over there in Trastevere, and he felt the shame rising to his face; and he leaned back in his low chair, clasping his hands tightly over one knee, as if to keep himself from moving.
"Marcello," Aurora began presently, but she got no further.
"Yes ?" Still he did not move.
"I have something on my conscience." She laughed low.

"No, it is serious!" she went on, as if reproving herself.

"I have always felt that everything that has happened to you since we parted that morning by the shore has been my fault." "Why ?" Marcello seemed surprised.
"Because I called you a baby," she said.

"If you had not been angry at that, if you had not turned away and left me suddenly--you were quite right, you know--you would not have been knocked down, you would not have wandered away and lost yourself.