I know her."
"One sees that you are not a Neapolitan," said Gianluca, smiling
faintly.
"No," answered the other, "I am not." And he laughed with a sort of
quiet consciousness of strength which his friend secretly envied. "It is
true," he added, "that things look easy to me here, which would be
utterly impossible in Palermo. We are different with our women--and we
are different when we love. Thank Heaven, for the present--I am as I
am."
He smiled and relit his cigar, which had gone out.
"No," said Gianluca. "You have never been in love, I think."
His fair young head leaned back wearily against the chair, and his eyes
were half closed as he spoke.
"Nor ever shall be, in your way, my friend," answered the Sicilian,
rising from his seat. "I suppose it is because we are so different that
we have always been such good friends. But then--one need not look for
reasons. It is enough that it is so."
Again he took the delicate, thin hand in his and pressed it, and went
away, much more anxious about Gianluca than he was willing to show. For
though he had suspected much of what he now saw, as a possibility, it
was a phase too new and startling not to trouble him greatly. It will
readily be conceived that if Gianluca had always been the weak and
dejected and despairing individual from whom Taquisara parted that
morning, there could never have been much friendship between the two.
But Gianluca, not in love, had been a very different person.
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