"HIST, Maso! Take this in to your lady mother," said Giulio. "I made it myself, so it's good." Giulio, one of the dining-room waiters at Casa Corti, was devoted to the Roscoes. Though he was master of a mysterious French polyglot, he used at present his own tongue, for Maso spoke Italian as readily as he did, and in much the same fashion.
Maso took the cup, and Giulio disappeared. As the boy was carrying the broth carefully towards his mother's door, Madame Corti passed him. She paused.
"Ah, Master Roscoe, I am relieved to learn that your mother is better. Will you tell her, with my compliments, that I advise her to go at once to the Bagni to make her recovery. She ought to go to-morrow. That is the air required for convalescence."
Maso repeated this to his mother. "'That is the air required for convalescence,' she said."
"And 'this is the room required for spring tourists,' she meant. Did she name a day—the angel?"
"Well, she did say to-morrow," Maso admitted.
"Old cat! She is dying to turn me out; she is so dreadfully afraid that the word fever will hurt her house. All the servants are sworn to call it rheumatism."
"See here, mother, Giulio sent you this."
"I don't want any of their messes."
"But he made it himself, so it's good." He knelt down beside her sofa, holding up the cup coaxingly.