"He wishes to see you," he said simply.
"How is he?" He had not understood her unspoken question. "How is he?" she repeated, as he hesitated a moment.
"To me he seems no worse. He says that he feels better to-day. But there is something, some change—something, I cannot tell what it is, since I last saw him."
"Stay here—please stay in the house!" said Veronica. "He may need you."
While she was speaking she had gone to the door, and she went out without looking back. A moment later, she was by Gianluca's side. She saw that what Don Teodoro had said was true. There was an undefinable change in his features since the previous day, and at the first sight of it her heart stood still an instant and the blood left her face, so that she felt very cold. She kept her back to the light, that he might not see that she was disturbed, and while she asked him how he was, her hands touched, and displaced, and replaced the little objects on the small table beside him,—the book, the glass, the flowers in the silver cup, the silver cigarette case, the things which, being quite helpless, he liked to have within his reach.
"I really feel better to-day," he said, watching her lovingly, as he answered her question. "I wish I could go out."
"You can be carried out upon the balcony in a little while," she said. "It is too cool, yet. It was a cold night, for we are getting near the end of August."
"And in Naples they are sweltering in the heat," he answered, smiling. "It is beautiful here. I can see the mountains through the open window, and the flowers tell me what the hillsides are like, in the sunshine. Taquisara says that your maid brings them every morning. Thank you—of course it is one of your endless kind doings."
"No," replied Veronica, frankly. "It is her way of showing her devotion, poor thing! Everybody loves you in the house—even the people who have hardly ever seen you. The women, speak of you as 'that angel'!" She tried to laugh cheerfully.
"I am glad they like me, though I have done nothing to be liked by them.
Please thank your maid for me. It is very kind of her."