Then:
"Tell me, Amalia, did you think me still handsome when you first saw me
to-day?"
"I do not know if your looks have changed. To me you seem just the same
as of old. You are as I have always seen you, as I have seen you in my
dreams."
"Look well, Amalia. See the wrinkles on my forehead; the loose folds of
my neck; the crow's-feet round my eyes. And look," he grinned, "I have
lost one of my eye teeth. Look at these hands, too, Amalia. My fingers
are like claws; there are yellow spots on the finger-nails; the blue
veins stand out. They are the hands of an old man."
She clasped both his hands as he held them out for her to see, and
affectionately kissed them one after the other in the shaded walk.
"To-night, I will kiss you on the lips," she said, with a mingling of
humility and tenderness, which roused his gall.
Close by, where the alley opened on to the greensward, Marcolina was
stretched on the grass, her hands clasped beneath her head, looking
skyward while the shuttlecocks flew to and fro. Suddenly reaching
upwards, she seized one of them in mid air, and laughed triumphantly.
The girls flung themselves upon her as she lay defenceless.
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