"I'm sure I don't know," said Anna, indifferently.
"Oh, you hypocrite, Anna!" laughed Laura.
"Hypocrite, hypocrite!" repeated Cesare, also laughing. "Come, I'll warrant that the obstinate fidelity of Caracciolo has at last made an impression. Admirable! He's been in love with you for a hundred years."
"Oh, Cesare, don't joke about such subjects," Anna begged, in pain.
"She's troubled, it's true," affirmed Laura.
"You're both of you heartless," Anna murmured.
Cesare opened his cigarette case, and playfully offered a cigarette to each of the ladies.
"Smoke is bad for the teeth;" and she showed her own, shining like those of Beatrice in the tale by Edgar Poe.
"You're right, fair Minerva. Will you smoke, Anna?"
"I don't smoke, either," she said, with a soft smile.
"You ought to learn. It would be becoming to you. You're dark, you have the Spanish type, and a _papelito_[D] would complete your charm."
"And what's more, smoke calms the nerves. You can't imagine the soothing effect it has. Nothing is better to relieve our little sorrows."
"Give me a cigarette, then," she said at once.
"Who knows!" she sighed, putting aside her cigarette.
"You have no little sorrows, Laura?" asked Cesare.
"Who can boast of having never wept?" said Anna, with a melancholy accent.
"If we become sentimental, I shall take myself off," said Cesare.
"No, no, don't go away," Anna prayed him.
"I would remind you that we've got to pass our whole life-time together," said he, ironically, knocking off the ash of his cigarette.
"All our life-time, and more beyond it," said Anna, pensively.
"And more beyond! It's a grave affair. I will think of it while I am dressing, this evening."
"Why don't you stay here?" she ventured to ask.
"Early--yes," he consented, after a short hesitation.
Laura, according to her recent habit, had listened to this dialogue with her eyes half closed, and biting her lips; she said nothing. Whenever her sister and her brother-in-law exchanged a few affectionate words (and, indeed, Cesare did no more than respond to the affection of Anna), she assumed the countenance of a statue, which neither feels nor hears nor sees; or else, she got up and left the room noiselessly. Often Anna surprised on Laura's face a cynical smile that appeared the antithesis of its extreme purity, the irony of an icy virgin who is aware of the falsity and hollowness of love.