She had adored her parents with an absorbing affection.

Then, as she grew up, everywhere in her Roman life, among her girl friends, or the handsome youths she remembered riding in the Villa Borghese gymkhana, she began to be aware of passion and sex; she caught the hints of them, as it were of a lightning playing through the web of life, flashing, and then gone--illuminating or destroying.

Her mind was full of love stories.

At twenty she had been the confidante of many, both from her married and her unmarried friends.

It was all, so far, a great mystery to her.