For some time past, too, it appeared as if the fairies had watched over him. Baskets of choice provisions and fruits were brought to his door by porters, who knew not who had employed them, or affected ignorance; and one day came a jewel in a letter, but no words.
At this point the suspicions of his landlady broke out. "This is none of thy patrons, silly boy; this is some lady that hath fallen in love with thy sweet face. Marry, I blame her not."
CHAPTER LXIII
THE Princess Clælia ordered a full-length portrait of herself. Gerard advised her to employ his friend Pietro Vanucci.
But she declined. "'Twill be time to put a slight on the Gerardo, when his work discontents me." Then Gerard, who knew he was an excellent draughtsman, but not so good a colourist, begged her to stand to him as a Roman statue. He showed her how closely he could mimic marble on paper. She consented at first; but demurred when this enthusiast explained to her that she must wear the tunic, toga, and sandals of the ancients.
"Why, I had as lieve be presented in my smock," said she, with mediæval frankness.
"Alack! signorina," said Gerard, "you have surely never noted the ancient habit; so free, so ample, so simple, yet so noble; and most becoming your highness, to whom Heaven hath given the Roman features, and eke a shapely arm and hand, hid in modern guise."
"What, can you flatter, like the rest, Gerardo? Well, give me time to think on't. Come o' Saturday, and then I will say ay or nay."
The respite thus gained was passed in making the tunic and toga, &c., and trying them on in her chamber, to see whether they suited her style of beauty well enough to compensate their being a thousand years out of date.