In the character of the young man that follows Mrs.Stone like a shadow everywhere she goes with her lover what we are shown is the truer, uglier reality of her relationship with Paolo that she does not want to face. In letting herself be carried away by the romantic illusion she constantly denies that at the base of her relationship with Paolo there is just as much practicality as there is in the reason the homeless young man pursues her. His needs are much more immediate. He needs clothes because his own are completely ragged. He needs food because he has nothing to eat. Mrs. Stone repeatedly wines and dines her lover and takes him on fancy shopping sprees and yet she is in complete denial of the fact that these favors have been at least in part fueling their relationship. Until the very end she refused to see the truth and yet when Paolo finally departs her company for greener pastures she finally accepts the young man and comes face to face with the reality of what her relationship was really like at its core. The young man symbolizes the ugly side of her relationship that she constantly shelters herself from and refused to admit that it existed until I could be denied no longer.
