He smiled at her tenderly for her question.
"Do you think you know anything about the little old white-haired lady when you ask that? I'll just give you an example. She abominates drunkenness--loathes it--in theory has no pity for it, finds no excuse. Well, they had a gardener once, when they were better off. There's not a school for the trade in Venice, as you can imagine. Tito knew absolutely nothing. He was worthless. He was as likely as not to pull up the best plant in the garden and think it was a weed. But there he was. Well, one day Claudina reported he was drunk. Drunk! Tito drunk! In their garden! Oh, but it was horrible--it was disgusting! She could scarcely believe that it was true. But Claudina's word had to be taken and Tito must go. She could not even bear to think he was still about the place.
"Tito--I have heard so and so--is it true?" she said.
Well--Tito talked about not feeling well and things disagreeing with him. At last he admitted it.
"Then you must go," said she--"I give you a week's wages."
But a piteous look came into Tito's face and he bent his head and he begged--'Oh, don't send me away, egregia signora!' and that cry of his went so much to her heart, that she almost took his head on her shoulder in her pity for him. And you say--will she forgive you? Why, her capacity for forgiveness is infinite! I often think, when they talk of the sins that God cannot pardon, I often think of her."
She looked up and smiled.
"Do you always tell a little story when you want to explain something?" she asked.
"Always," said he--"to little children."
She shut her eyes to feel the caress in the words.