Norwood gave a sidelong glance at the speaker, and, although he said nothing, a gesture of angry impatience revealed what was passing within him.
“Do try that brandy. Well, then, take a glass of curacoa,” said he, pushing the bottle towards him.
“Something! anything, in fact, you would say, Norwood, that might serve to make my courage 'carry the bead;' but you are altogether mistaken in inc. It is not of myself I am thinking; my anxieties are. But what could you care, or even understand, about my motives? Finish your breakfast, and let us make an end of this affair.”
“In one minute more I'm your man; but if I have a weakness, it is for a plain roast truffle, with butter. It was a first love of mine, and, as the adage says, 'only revient toujours.' Were I in your shoes this morning, George, I 'd not leave one on the dish.”
“On what principle, pray?” asked Onslow, smiling.
“On that of the old Cardinal, who, when his doctors pronounced his case hopeless, immediately ordered a supper of ortolans with olives. It was a grand opportunity to indulge without the terror of an indigestion; and a propos to such themes, where can our worthy doctor be all this time? The calessino was close up with us all the way.”
Leaving Norwood to continue his meal, George strolled out in quest of the surgeon, but none had seen nor knew anything of him. An empty calessino was standing on the roadside, but the driver only knew that the gentleman who came with him had got out there, and entered the park.
“Then we shall find him near the little lake,” said Norwood, coolly, as George returned, disappointed. “But it's strange, too, that he should be alone. Jekyl was to have been with him. These foreigners ever insist upon two seconds on either side. Like the gambler that always is calling for fresh cards, it looks very like a suspicion of foul play. Go back, George, and see if the fellow knows nothing of Jekyl. You 've only to name him, for every cab, cad, and barcaruolo of Florence is acquainted with Master Albert.”
George returned to the spot, but without any success. The man stated that he took his stand, as he was desired, at the gate of the palace, and that a little man, apparently somewhat elderly, came out and asked which way the others had gone, and how long before they had started. “See that you pick them up then,” said he, “but don't pass them. He talked incessantly,” added the man, “the whole way, but in such bad Italian that I could make nothing of it, and so I answered at random. If I were tired of him, I fancy he was sick of me; and when he got out yonder, and passed into the park, it was a relief to us both.”
George was just turning away, when his eye caught a glimpse of the glorious landscape beneath, on which a freshly risen sun was shedding all its splendor. There are few scenes, even in Italy, more striking than the Val d'Arno around Florence. The beautiful city itself, capped with many a dome and tower, the gigantic castle of the Bargello, the graceful arch of the Baptistery, the massive facade of the Pitti, all, even to the lone tower on the hill where Galileo watched, rich in their storied memories; while on the gentle slope of the mountain stood hundreds of beauteous villas, whose very names are like spells to the imagination, and the Dante, the Alfieri, the Boccaccio, vie in interest with the sterner realities of the Medici, the Pazzi, the Salviati, and the Strozzi. What a flood of memory pours over the mind, to think how every orange-grove and terrace, how each clump of olives, or each alley of cedars, have witnessed the most intense passions, or the most glorious triumphs of man's intellect or ambition, and that every spot we see has its own claim to immortality!