"Poor little girl!" he said, and his voice shook with the depth of his emotion. After a pause, he spoke again, and this time his voice was full, deep, decided.
"You can't live with him any longer you know, you must come with me."
Then for an instant his anger blazed out like the sudden flare of lightning on a summer evening.
"By God, if ever I see that man,--no, that beast, I shall kill him!"
A thrill of savage joy ran through Ragna,--here then, was the man, the defender! The primitive woman in her leaped in response to his calm taking possession of her. Here was no questioning as to right, merely the assumption of herself and her burdens as the most perfectly obvious and natural thing in the world. Yes, he was right, she was his; she proudly acknowledged his right to command, to take her; she hugged the consciousness of her recognition of his mastery. Here was a lord she acknowledged with all her sentient being, one whom her soul delighted to honour. Mentally she compared with him the man who had been so long her hated and feared master, and the paltriness of Egidio made her wonder how she had let herself feel insulted by the words and actions of one so mean, so morally insignificant. She longed to throw out her arms to the man beside her, in one glorious gesture of self-abandonment, offering all that she was and could be, her whole being.
But the coachman was pointing with his whip to the beauties of the landscape, austere Fiesole and Settignano nestled in the lap of the hills, across the valley, and perched on the scarred pine-crowned hill between the Casa al Vento, all swimming in rosy amethyst, to Monte alle Croci, on which one distinguished the tiny mortuary chapels, the back of S. Miniato, the Arcivescovado masked in scaffolding, the Capucine monastery with its expresses, and nearer still the slopes of silvery olive and green waving grain, where cornflowers and poppies began to appear. So she only leaned forward and looked into Angelescu's eyes, clasping both her hands on his. She had thrown back her veil and her face appeared radiant, lit from within by the light of her love in its passionate consciousness of supremacy.
A steep bit of hill, and the horse, goaded into a momentary effort drew up panting in the little piazza before the Church which stood as on a pinnacle, the land on both sides sweeping away to a deep valley. On the right hand one saw range upon range of bare hill-tops with olive-covered slopes, and down below small white houses, each surrounded by its "podere," with here and there a "fattoria" or a villa, dotted the green valley. On the near hill-slopes the gorse was in blossom, its yellow flowers straggling over the rough ground like a ragged mantle of cloth of gold, and the strong sweet perfume of it assailed the nostrils. Across the piazza, opposite the grey old church was the priest's garden, an old-fashioned straggling garden sweet with wall-flowers, pinks and stocks, planted as borders to the onions, carrots, cabbages and lettuces; misshapen fig-trees ran riot and the _nespoli_ showed the golden glow of ripened fruit among the heavy foliage. Lizards ran to and fro over the wall, from the crevices of which sprouted tufts of grass, snap-dragon, saxifrage and a kind of small fern.