"Well, she came to me one day, crying her heart out. She declared she was in love with the most worthless man in the whole of Venice. 'Get over it then, Claudina,' I said. But she assured me that it was impossible. He had only to put up his little finger, she said and she had to go to his beckoning, if only to tell him how worthless she thought he was. Well--I prescribed Ignatia, and she was cured of it in a week. She laughs when she talks about him now."
John was forced to smile, but as quickly it died away.
"And is that what you want me to do?" he asked. "Do you want me to be able to laugh when I talk about the lady of St. Joseph? You'd be as sorry as I should, if I did. It would hurt you as much as it would me."
"Then you won't take it, John?" She looked up imploringly into his face.
"No--no charms or potions for me. Besides--" he bent down close to her ear--"the lady of St. Joseph is in Venice. She's coming to see you this afternoon."
With a little cry of delight, she threw the bottle of Ignatia down upon the table and caught his face in her trembling hands.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE SACRIFICE
A belief in Ignatia argues a ready disposition for Romance.
The mind of the little old white-haired lady belonged to that period when love was a visitation only to be cured by the use of simples, herbs, and magic. She called the treatment--homeopathic. It was her gentle way of assuring herself that she marched bravely with the times; that the superstition of the Middle-Ages had nothing whatever to do with it.