It was the first time they had ever been left alone together, and while he still held her with his right hand his left stole round her neck, to bring her face nearer.
But she resisted him almost fiercely; she set both her hands against his chest and pushed herself from him with all her might, and the red blush rose even to her forehead at the thought of the kiss she almost saw on his lips, a kiss that hers had never felt.

He meant nothing against her will, and when he felt that she was matching her girl's strength against his, as if she feared him, his arms relaxed and he let her go.

She sprang to her feet like a young animal released, and leaned against the mantelpiece breathing hard, and fixing her burning eyes on the old engraving of Saint Ursula, asleep in a queer four-post bedstead with her crown at her feet, that hung over the fireplace.

But instead of rising to stand beside her, Giovanni leaned back in his chair, his hands crossed over one knee; and instead of looking up to her face, he gazed steadily down at the hem of her long black skirt, where it lay motionless across the wolf's skin that served for a hearth-rug.
'What is it ?' she asked, after a long pause, and rather unsteadily.
He understood that she was going back to the question she had asked him at first, but still he did not answer.

She kept her eyes steadily on Saint Ursula while she spoke again.
'If it is not good-bye, what is it that is so hard to say ?' 'I have had a long talk with my father.' Angela moved a little and looked down at his bent head, for he spoke in an almost despairing tone.