“You shall see him at once,” answered the princess, who rose and rang the bell, and then, as the servant’s footsteps were heard outside, crossed the room to meet him at the door.

“Mamma likes to run about,” said Flavia, sweetly, in explanation.  Giovanni had risen and made as though he would have been of some assistance.

The action was characteristic of the Princess Montevarchi.  An Italian woman would neither have rung the bell herself, nor have committed such an imprudence as to turn her back upon her two daughters when there was a man in the room.  But she was English, and a whole lifetime spent among Italians could not extinguish her activity; so she went to the door herself.  Faustina’s deep eyes followed her mother as though she were interested to know the news of Gouache.

“I hope he is better,” she said, quietly.

“Of course,” echoed Flavia, “So do I. But mamma amuses me so much!  She is always in a hurry.”

Faustina made no answer, but she looked at Sant’ Ilario, as though she wondered what he thought of her sister.  He returned her gaze, trying to explain to himself the strange attraction of her expression, watching her critically as he would have watched any new person or sight.  She did not blush nor avoid his bold eyes, as he would have expected had he realised that he was staring at her.

A few minutes later Giovanni found himself in a narrow, high room, lighted by one window, which showed the enormous thickness of the walls in the deep embrasure.  The vaulted ceiling was painted in fresco with a representation of Apollo in the act of drawing his bow, arrayed for the time being in his quiver, while his other garments, of yellow and blue, floated everywhere save over his body.  The floor of the room was of red bricks, which had once been waxed, and the furniture was scanty, massive and very old.  Anastase Gouache lay in one corner in a queer-looking bed covered with a yellow damask quilt the worse for a century or two of wear, upon which faded embroideries showed the Montevarchi arms surmounted by a cardinal’s hat.  Upon a chair beside the patient lay the little heap of small belongings he had carried in his pocket when hurt, his watch and purse, his cigarettes, his handkerchief and a few other trifles, among which, half concealed by the rest, was the gold pin he had picked up by the bridge on the previous evening.  There was a mingled smell of dampness and of stale tobacco in the comfortless room, for the windows were closely shut, in spite of the bright sunshine that flooded the opposite side of the street.

Gouache lay on his back, his head tied up in a bandage and supported by a white pillow, which somehow conveyed the impression of one of those marble cushions upon which in old-fashioned monuments the effigies of the dead are made to lean in eternal prayer, if not in eternal ease.  He moved impatiently as the door opened, and then recognising Giovanni, he hailed him in a voice much more lively and sonorous than might have been expected.