"I am not so beautiful as Diana," she said laughingly one day to Marcantonio, "but I am sure I am much more alive than she is." He laughed too, well pleased at the distinction drawn. He was glad that his sister should be thought cold, and he believed that his wife loved him. He kissed her hand tenderly.
They had been married two months when they came to stay in Sorrento. It is a beautiful place. Perhaps in all the orange-scented south there is none more perfect, more sweet with gardens and soft sea-breath, more rich in ancient olive-groves, or more tenderly nestled in the breast of a bountiful nature. A little place it is, backed and flanked by the volcanic hills, but having before it the glory of the fairest water in the world. Straight down from the orange gardens the cliffs fall to the sea, and every villa and village has a descent, winding through caves and by stairways to its own small sandy cove, where the boats lie in the sun through the summer's noontide heat, to shoot out at morning and evening into the coolness of the breezy bay. Among the warm, green fruit trees the song-birds have their nests, and about the eaves of the scattered houses the swallows wheel and race in quick, smooth circles. Far along through the groves echoes the ancient song of the southern peasant, older than the trees, older than the soil, older than poor old Pompeii lying off there in the eternal ashes of her gorgeous sins. And ever the sapphire sea kisses the feet of the cliffs as though wooing the rocks to come down, and plunge in, and taste how good a thing it is to be cool and wet all over.
To this place Marcantonio and his wife came at the beginning of July, having picked up numerous possessions and a few servants in Rome. They both had a taste for comfort, though they enjoyed the small privations of travelling for a time. To luxurious people it is pleasant to be uncomfortable when the fancy takes them, in order that they may the better enjoy the tint of their purple and the softness of their fine linen by the contrast. For contrast is the magnifying glass of the senses.
At sunset they walked side by side in their terraced garden overlooking the sea. They had travelled all night and had rested all day in consequence, and now they were refreshed and alive to the magic things about them.