Veronica wondered why she had never noticed him before, except when he was talking with her.  He was ill and weak, but he was undeniably a noticeable man.  She remembered all that his friend had said of him, and her own disappointment after her last meeting with him, and she all at once realized that she had only seen the man at his worst.  She watched him narrowly.  He must have felt her eyes upon him, for he turned without apparent reason, and met them.  Instantly the blood mounted to the roots of his hair, and he looked away again, and stumbled and hesitated in the answer he gave to what Bianca had last said.

But Veronica remembered very distinctly his speeches to her, and she recalled in contrast the words Bosio had spoken to her just before he died.  Then she turned her head, and listened to Taquisara.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I have not the slightest idea,” replied the Sicilian, with a little laugh.  “I suppose it must have been a compliment, and I did not expect any answer, of course.”

“I should have thanked you, if I had heard it,” answered Veronica, smiling rather absently, for she was still thinking of Gianluca.

“A man never expects thanks from a woman,” said Taquisara.  “Shall you stay long with the Princess Corleone?”

“I do not know.  I have not decided.  Why do you ask?”

“Was I indiscreet?”

“No.  Of course not.  I thought you might have some reason for asking.”

“A general reason, perhaps,” answered Taquisara.  “You have been in trouble.  I suppose that you have been unhappy, and that you will change your life in some way—­so I asked what you were going to do.”

“As for staying here or not, I have not yet decided.  But what I mean to do would not interest you at all.  Before very long, I shall probably go to Muro.”

“To Muro!  I have often wished to see the place where they murdered Queen Joanna.”

“I have never been there myself, though it belongs to me,” answered Veronica.  “Her ghost has it all to itself now.  They say that she sits at the head of the grand staircase, once a year, at midnight, and shrieks.  If you wish to see Muro, you had better go before I am there,” she added, with a smile.  “I shall be there alone, and I could not possibly receive you, as I could not even offer you a cup of tea, you know.”

“What an absurd institution society is,” observed Taquisara, with contempt.  “The priest says, ‘Ego conjungo vos’; and you are licensed to snap your fingers at everything that has bound you until that moment, as though the law of your marriage were your divorce from law.”

“That sounds clever,” said Veronica; “but I do not believe it is.”

He laughed, indifferently; and after a moment or two, she looked at him, and smiled.

“I did not mean to be so rude,” she said.