"Will ye buy, messer? See how fair and even be the letters. Few are left can write like that; and scarce a quarter of the price."
"I would fain have it," said Gerard, sadly; "but my heart will not let me. Know that I am a caligraph, and these disciples of Fust run after me round the world a-taking the bread out of my mouth. But I wish them no ill. Heaven forbid!" And he hurried from the shop.
"Dear Margaret," said he to himself, "we must lose no time; we must make our hay while shines the sun. One month more and an avalanche of printer's type shall roll down on Rome from those Apennines, and lay us waste that writers be."
And he almost ran to the princess Clælia.
He was ushered into an apartment new to him. It was not very large, but most luxurious; a fountain played in the centre, and the floor was covered with the skins of panthers, dressed with the hair, so that no footfall could be heard. The room was an antechamber to the princess's boudoir, for on one side there was no door, but an ample curtain of gorgeous tapestry.
Here Gerard was left alone till he became quite uneasy, and doubted whether the maid had not shown him to the wrong place.
These doubts were agreeably dissipated.
A light step came swiftly behind the curtain; it parted in the middle, and there stood a figure the heathens might have worshipped. It was not quite Venus, nor quite Minerva; but between the two; nobler than Venus, more womanly than Jupiter's daughter. Toga, tunic, sandals; nothing was modern. And as for beauty, that is of all times.
Gerard started up, and all the artist in him flushed with pleasure.
"Oh!" he cried, innocently, and gazed in rapture.