It was a very delicately made hand, but it did not look weak, and it moved quickly and deftly among the glasses without any useless clatter or unnecessary spilling and splashing of water. Hands, like faces, have expressions, and the difference is that the expression of the hand changes but little in many years. No artist could have glanced at Maria’s without feeling that it had a sad look about it, a something regretful and tender which would have made any manly man wish to take it in his and comfort it.
The people who came to the booth gave silver for a glass of lemonade, and some gave gold, and many of them told Maria plainly that she was the prettiest sight in all the great fair. Most of those who came had never seen her before in their lives and had no idea who she was, though her name was one of those great ones that every Roman knows.
A handsome young bricklayer who had paid a franc for a glass of syrup of almonds, and who had boldly told Maria that she was the beauty of the day, asked a policeman her name.
‘The Contessa di Montalto.’
The young man looked pleased, for he had secretly hoped to hear that she was nothing less than a Savelli or a Frangipane; not at all for the sake of boasting that he had received his glass from such very superior hands, but only for the honour of Rome. Yet though the name was familiar to him because he knew where the palace was, he had imagined that the family had died out.
‘Which is this Montalto?’ he asked.
The policeman could not answer the question, and his official face was like a stone mask. But the bricklayer had a friend who was engaged to marry a sempstress who worked for a smart dressmaker, and therefore knew all about society; and in the course of time he found the two walking about, and offered to pay for lemonade if they would come to the booth with him. They were not thirsty, and thanked him politely, so he asked the young woman who this Contessa di Montalto might be. She threw up her eyes with an air of compassion.
‘Ah, poor lady!’ she cried. ‘That is a long story, for she has been alone these seven years since her husband left her. He was a barbarian, a man without heart, to leave her! Was it her fault if she had loved some one else before she was married to him?’
‘Adelina is a socialist,’ observed the young woman’s betrothed, with a laugh. ‘She believes in free love! It is all very well now, my heart,’ he added, looking at her with adoring eyes, ‘but after we have been to the Capitol you shall be a conservative.’
‘Oh, indeed? I suppose you will beat me if I look at your friend here?’ She pretended to be angry.