Then I ordered my servant to go without fail to St. Silvester and learn whether perchance the Marchioness or Senhor M. Angelo happened to be there. The servant was not long in returning, telling me that Senhor M. Angelo and Senhor Lactancio and Brother Ambrose were all together in the friar's cell, which was itself in St. Silvester, but that no mention whatever had been made of the Marchioness. I went on towards St. Silvester, but the truth is that I intended to pass before it and to return to the city, when I saw coming a certain Çapata, a great servitor of the Marchioness, and a very honourable person and my friend. I being on horseback and he on foot, I was obliged to dismount; and he having told me that he had been sent by the Marchioness, we went into St. Silvester. As we were entering Senhores, M. Angelo and M. Lactancio were coming out by way of the garden or court, in order to take their siesta under the trees by the running water.
"Oh! welcome," said Senhor Lactancio, "both of you; you could not arrive at a better moment; you have been very wise [pg 307]to fly from the confusion in the city and take shelter in this quiet haven."
"That is all very well," we said, "but this flattery does not console us, nor is it sufficient to compensate us for the loss of the absent one."
"He said that for the Marchioness," said Senhor Michael, "and you are so far right, that if you had not come this instant I might have gone."
Conversing thus we sat down on a stone bench in the garden at the foot of some laurels, on which there was room for all of us, and we were very comfortable, leaning back against the green ivy which covered the wall, and from there we could see a good part of the city, very graceful and full of ancient majesty.
"Let us not lose everything," said Senhor Çapata, after making excuses for the Marchioness; "let us get some profit out of such a goodly assembly as we have here; please continue the same noble discussion which you held a few days ago, on the most noble art of painting, seeing that the Marchioness very reluctantly commissioned me to that end, for she herself would have liked to be present. But you must know that she sent me here to report to her everything stored in my memory, to relate to her everything treated of, without losing a single point. And therefore we are bound, gentlemen, I to hear and to be silent about what I do not understand, and you to give me something to remember and report."
"Senhor Michael," I answered, "must fulfil the wishes of the Marchioness when she heard me in the last discussion, and practically promised to show me whether painting would be entirely useless in time of war, for I remember that her Excellency named last Sunday, in which we did not meet, for that purpose."
Here M. Angelo laughed, and added:
"So you, M. Francisco, expect the Marchioness to have as [pg 308]much power when absent as when present. Well, as you have so much faith in her, I do not wish you to lose it through me."
All said that it would be well, and then M. Angelo began to say: