Cesare Dias looked at her fixedly. He looked at her like this whenever her voice betrayed emotion. It seemed to him that it was her old nature revealing itself again; he wished to stamp it out, to suffocate it. Her heart was defenceless, too impressionable, the heart of a child: he wished to turn it into a heart of bronze, which would be unaffected by the breath of passion. Always, therefore, when Anna allowed her soul to vibrate in her voice, Cesare Dias, naturally serious and composed enough, seemed to become more serious, more austere; his eye hardened into glass, and Anna felt that she had displeased him. She knew that she displeased him as often as anything in her manner could recall that wild adventure which had sullied the innocence of her girlhood: as often as she gave any sign of being deeply moved: if she turned pale, if she bowed her head, if she wept. Cesare Dias hated all such manifestations of sentimental weakness. Sometimes, when Anna could no longer control herself, and her emotion could not be prevented from shining in her eyes, he would pretend not to notice it. Sometimes he would demand, "What is the matter?"
"Nothing," said she, timidly conscious that by her timidity she but displeased him the more.
"Always the same--incorrigible," he murmured, shaking his head hopelessly.
"Forgive me; I can't help it," she besought him with an imploring glance.
"You shouldn't say of anything that you can't help it. You should be strong enough to govern yourself in all circumstances," was the axiom of Cesare Dias.
One day in April, Stella Martini, coming home from a walk with Laura, brought her some flowers--some beautiful wild rosebuds, which in Naples blossom so early in the year. Anna was seated in an easy-chair near the window, through which entered the soft spring air; and when she saw Laura and Stella come into the house--Laura dressed in white, breathing peace and youth from every line of her figure--Stella with her face that seemed to have been scalded and shrivelled up by tears shed long ago, both bearing great quantities of fresh sweet roses, the poor girl's heart swelled with indescribable tenderness.
Holding the roses in her hand, she caressed them, touched them with her face, buried her lips in them, and said under her voice: "Thank you, thank you," as if in her weakness she could find no other words to express her pleasure.