“Peppina!” Teresa laughed again.
She knew that the two disagreed, and thought that Nina was inclined to be hard on the girl. “And why?”
“She is hot-headed, and the air here is not good for that illness.”
“The air? It is perfect.”
“Not at night, eccellenza. It has been known to carry a man off as quickly as if—”
“As if?”
“As if he had had a knife in his heart,” Nina said slowly, in a low whisper, and glancing round. Two men were coming up behind, and she immediately raised her voice to a more cheerful key. “Is it to be the blessed Santa Caterina to-day, eccellenza? Not that I believe she can have anything to say to such ignorant people as these, but it is more lucky to sit where a saint looks down upon you, since she might be obliged to do something for her own credit.”
She talked so persistently all the rest of the way that it was evident she meant to say nothing more on the subject of unwholesome air. Teresa, who knew her prejudices, was quite undisturbed by her hints, and occupied in her drawing. She sat in a little angle of the long street, which the Arabs called El Kasr—so linking it with the Luxor of Egypt—facing the beautiful doorway of Santa Caterina’s Church. The colouring is exquisite, for the wood has been faded by sun and soft winds into a grey blue—the exact shade of Saint Peter’s dome—veined here and there by pink, while high above door and cornice stands a small graceful figure of the saint, leaning on her wheel, and shaded by delicate grasses.
Teresa’s eagerness about whatever interest absorbed her was apt to leave other impressions in the lurch. She was very well content to believe that things were greatly improved between Sylvia and Wilbraham, and that there was no need for her to waste uneasiness in that direction; indeed, she had persuaded herself that her past uneasiness had been born of mere over-anxiety. All along she had ranked the girl’s prettiness unduly high in its effect, but now she was sure that her after qualms were unnecessary. As for Nina’s chatter, that she dismissed with all the Tuesdays and Fridays, hunchbacks and oil-spilling, which haunted the little Viterbo woman’s days. She was, indeed, unusually gay at heart, probably from her out-of-door life in that delicious air, which was now gently sweeping off the almond petals on the hillside.
Mrs Maxwell was very much disappointed by the processions in Holy Week. After waiting for days, as she said, to see them, she had expected something better than a few white-hooded men straggling before the baldacchino. Yet the Duomo, empty of interest as it is—except to those who penetrate to the embroideries in the sacristy—lends itself picturesquely to effect, with its fine doorways and its red marble steps. And on Good Friday, as she, Sylvia, and Wilbraham waited in a little piazza just inside an inner gate, Teresa saw something which she will never forget.