Having bathed (a luxury after waterless Rome), and eaten a morsel of bread with a draught of his own wine, he called his housekeeper, and bade her make known to the lady, his guest, that he begged permission to wait upon her.  With but a few minutes’ delay Veranilda descended to the room which lay behind the atrium.  Marcian, loitering among the ivied plane-trees without, was told of her coming, and at once entered.

She was alone, standing at the back of the room; her hands hanging linked before her, the lower part of the arms white against the folds of a russet-coloured tunic.  And Marcian beheld her face.

He took a few rapid steps toward her, checked himself, bowed profoundly, and said in a somewhat abrupt voice: 

’Gracious lady, is it by your own wish that you are unattended?  Or have my women, by long disuse, so forgotten their duties—­’

Veranilda interrupted him.

’I assure you it was my own wish, lord Marcian.  We must speak of things which are not for others’ hearing.’

In the same unnatural voice, as though he put constraint upon himself for the performance of a disagreeable duty, he begged her to be seated, and Veranilda, not without betraying a slight trouble of surprise, took the chair to which he pointed.  But he himself did not sit down.  In the middle of the room stood a great bronze candelabrum, many-branched for the suspension of lamps, at its base three figures, Pluto, Neptune, and Proserpine.  It was the only work of any value which the villa now contained, and Marcian associated it with the memories of his earliest years.  As a little child he had often gazed at those three faces, awed by their noble gravity, and, with a child’s diffidence, he had never ventured to ask what beings these were.  He fixed his eyes upon them now, to avoid looking at Veranilda.  She, timidly glancing at him, said in her soft, low voice, with the simplest sincerity: 

‘I have not yet found words in which to thank you, lord Marcian.’

’My thanks are due to you, dear lady, for gracing this poor house with your presence.’

His tone was more suavely courteous.  For an instant he looked at her, and his lips set themselves in something meant for a smile.

‘This is the end of our journey?’ she asked.

‘For some days—­if the place does not displease you.’

’How could I be ill at ease in the house of Basil’s friend, and with the promise that Basil will soon come?’

Marcian stared at the face of Proserpine, who seemed to regard him with solemn thoughtfulness.

‘Had you any forewarning of your release from the monastery?’ he asked of a sudden.

‘None.  None whatever.’

‘You thought you would remain there for long to come?’

‘I had not dared to think of that.’

Marcian took a few paces, glanced at the sweet face, the beautiful head with its long golden hair, and came back to his place by the candelabrum, on which he rested a trembling hand.