Marcantonio and Leonora travelled for a time, and at last agreed to spend the remainder of the summer in some quiet seaside place in Southern Italy. They soon discovered the fallacy of wandering about Europe with a maid and a quantity of luggage, and they both hoped that under the clear sky of the south they might find exactly what they wanted. So they gravitated to Sorrento and hired a villa overhanging the sea, and Marcantonio suggested vaguely that they might have some one to stay with them if they found it dull. At this Leonora felt injured. The idea of his finding life dull in her company!
"How can you possibly suggest such a thing?" she asked, in a hurt tone.
"Not for myself, my dear," said Marcantonio, with an affectionate smile. "It struck me that you might not find it very amusing. I could never find it dull where you are, ma bien aimée." And indeed he never did. Leonora was pacified, as she almost always was when he was particularly affectionate.
"But, of course," he continued, "you will enjoy the being able to read and study your favourite books."
"I never want to read them now," said Leonora, who chanced that day to be not very philosophically disposed. She had been perusing the latest French impossibility,--she found it rather amusing to be allowed to have what she liked now that she was married.
"I should be glad if you never read any more philosophy," said Marcantonio, unwisely saying what was uppermost in his thoughts.
"Really, though," answered Leonora, "I know it all so very superficially that I feel I must go back and be much more thorough. I think I shall take a sound course of Voltaire and Hegel, and that sort of thing, this summer."
Her husband was silent. He began to suspect his wife of being capable of an occasional contradiction for the mere love of it. Besides, he saw no particular connection between the two authors she named. But then he knew very little about them. He looked at Leonora. There was not a trace of unpleasant expression in her face, and she seemed to have merely made the remark in the air, without the least intention of being contradictory or captious. He liked to look at her, she was so fresh and fair. Neither heat nor cold seemed to touch her delicate white skin,--her hair was so thick and strong, and her blue eyes so bright. She was the very incarnation of life. What if her features were not quite classic in their proportion?