They sat silent as the carriage drove through the Via Maggio and down the long, winding Via Romana, but as they left the Porta Romana behind them and the pace slackened on the long hill, Ragna, with a determined effort, broke the silence.
"I have not yet told you that I am married," she said.
"Married!" repeated Angelescu, "married!" He looked at her as though stunned.
The idea that she might have married had never occurred to him. When she had refused him, he had not, in his direct simplicity, thought of the possibility of her giving to another that which she denied to him. He recoiled instinctively at the thought of her possession by another, and this time no accident, no sudden impulse, but with her full consent, as the fact of marriage must necessarily imply. It sickened him. How could she have given herself to another when everything about her proclaimed her love for himself. Could she then pass so lightly from one man's arms to another's? Now she had turned to him, but in the light of her prior action, what value had her present appeal? And why this appeal, since she had already found a protector, a husband? What explanation could there be to her conduct, except that as a frail barque, she drifted where the currents of circumstance and impulse took her? Or was she dominated by fickleness, a fatal longing for change and excitement? But here, his native generosity came to his aid,--the pressure of extraordinary circumstances must have been brought to bear on her, he must hear her out before judging.
So he turned to her, as she sat apprehensively expectant and took her hand in his own, saying:
"Tell me all, dear, don't be afraid. I was surprised, for I had not guessed--"
His voice was tender, affectionate; he spoke as he would to encourage the confidence of a shrinking child, and the beauty of it all was his perfect naturalness, the outcome of his simple generous soul.
To Ragna, realising as she needs must, from his first involuntary start, his look of horror and surprise, what a shock her bald announcement had been to him, his quick recovery, the tender simplicity of his response seemed little short of miraculous; she had not dared hope for so much. A lump rose in her throat and the hand that lay in his trembled.