‘Hush! You must not say that, my dear. The palace is very gloomy, and I chose to live in a more cheerful part of the city.’
‘I like it better, too,’ said the boy in a tone of reflection. ‘But all other people live in their own palaces, all the same.’
‘Most of our friends are many in a family, dear. But we are only you and I.’
A silence, during which the child’s brain was weighing these matters in the balance.
‘I’m glad papa never comes back,’ he said at last. ‘You are, too.’
Without waiting for an answer, and as if to give vent to his feelings, he turned away, picked up a small stone, and threw it as far as he could over the green grass below the ruins—presumably at an imaginary enemy of Italy. He watched it as it fell, and did not seem satisfied with his performance.
‘I suppose David was bigger than I am when he killed the giant with a pebble,’ he observed rather wistfully.
They drove home.
‘Why didn’t you know that the land out there belongs to us, mama?’ asked Leone, after a long silence, when they were near the Porta San Giovanni.
‘I know very little about the property, except that it is large and some of it is in the Campagna.’