“She thinks Sor Marzio has suddenly turned into a sugar doll,” answered Gianbattista, with a laugh.  “It may be.  They say they make sugar out of all sorts of things nowadays.”

“Capperi! It would be hard!” exclaimed Maria Luisa.  “If there is enough sugar in him to sweeten a teaspoonful of coffee, write to me,” she added ironically.

“Well—­I shall be at the church in an hour, but it will be time enough if you come at twenty-three o’clock—­between twenty-two and twenty-three.”  This means between one hour and two hours before sunset.  “The light is good then, for there is a big west window,” added Gianbattista in explanation.

“We will come before that,” said Lucia.  “Good-bye, Tista, and take care not to catch cold in that damp place.”

“And you too,” he answered, “cover yourselves carefully.”

With this injunction, and a parting wave of the hand, he left the house, affecting a gay humour he did not really feel.  His invitation to the two women to join him in the church had another object besides that of showing them the magnificent gilded grating which was to be put in place.  Gianbattista feared that Marzio had sent him upon this business for the sake of getting him out of the way, and he did not know what might happen in his absence.  The artist might perhaps choose that time for going in search of Gasparo Carnesecchi in order to bring him to the house and precipitate the catastrophe which the apprentice still feared, in spite of the last events of the morning.  It was not unusual for Maria Luisa and her daughter to accompany him and Marzio when a finished work was to be set up, and Gianbattista knew that there could be no reasonable objection to such, a proceeding.

With an anxious heart he left the house and crossed the street to the workshop where the men were already waiting for the carts which were to convey the heavy grating to its destination.  The pieces were standing against the walls, wrapped in tow and brown paper, and immense parcels lay tied up upon the benches.  It was a great piece of work of the decorative kind, but of the sort for which Marzio cared little.  Great brass castings were chiselled and finished according to his designs without his touching them with his hands.  Huge twining arabesques of solid metal were prepared in pieces and fitted together with screws that ran easily in the thread, and then were taken apart again.  Then came the laborious work of gilding by the mercury process, smearing every piece very carefully with an amalgam of mercury and gold, and putting it into a gentle, steady fire, until the mercury had evaporated, tearing only the dull gold in an even deposit on the surfaces.  Then the finishing, the burnishing of the high lights, and the cleaning of the portions which were to remain dull.  Sometimes the gilding of a piece failed, and had to be begun again, and there was endless trouble in saving the gold, as well as in preventing the workmen from stealing the amalgam.  It was slow and troublesome work, and Marzio cared little for it, though his artistic instinct restrained him from allowing it to leave the workshop until it had been perfected to the highest degree.