It is true that what he had felt then had been accompanied by the most awful terror he could imagine, but he distinguished clearly between the one sensation and the other.

There was nothing to fear now; he had simply lost time, but that was bad enough, since it was due to his own stupidity.
He thought over the situation carefully and considered how much it would be wise to risk.

Another year of the life Marcello had been leading in Paris would have killed him to a certainty; perhaps six months would have done it.

But a summer spent at Pontresina, living as it was clear that Regina meant him to live, would give the boy strength enough to last much longer, and might perhaps bring him out of all danger.
Corbario considered what might be done, went over many plans in his mind, compared many schemes, for the execution of some of which he might have paid dearly; and in the end he was dissatisfied with all, and began over again.

Still he reached no conclusion, and he attributed the fault to his own dulness, and his dulness to the life he had been leading of late, which was very much that which he wished Marcello to lead.