At the door of the salon he was met by Margherita, their Roman servant—a glorious creature who looked as if she might have been the mother of the Gracchi, but who was married, instead, to an honest water-carrier down by the Ripetta, and was thankful to go out to service for some months every year.
"Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "She sleeps still."
The breakfast lay on the table, untouched and ready; the morning sunshine flamed in at the windows; the flowers on the balcony filled the air of the room with a voluptuous perfume. It was a day of days—a day when to be still in bed seemed almost like a sacrilege—a day when, above all others, one should be up, and doing, and revelling in the spring-time of the glad new year.
Hugh Girdlestone could scarcely believe that Margherita was in earnest.
"Sleeps!" he repeated. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the Signora has not yet rung her bell."
"But is she still in bed?"
"Still in bed, Signore, and sleeping soundly. I stole in about half-an-hour ago, and she never heard me. I would not wake her. Sleep is a blessed thing—the good God sends it."
The Englishman laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"One may have too much, even of a blessing, my good Margherita," he said. "I shall wake her, at all events, and she will thank me for doing so. See—I have something here worth the opening of one's eyes to look upon!"