"No," says I, cutting him short, "the money must be found at once, or be assured that your lady will take the management of her affairs out of your hands."
This raised a fresh outcry and more lamentations, but in the end he promised to procure the money by collecting his rents in advance, if his mistress would refuse Mr. Goodman's offer and wait three weeks; and on Moll's behalf I agreed to these terms.
A few days after this, we were called into the dining-hall to see the finished ceiling, which truly deserved all the praise we could bestow upon it, and more. For now that the sky appeared through the opening, with a little pearly cloud creeping across it, the verdure and flowers falling over the marble coping, and the sunlight falling on one side and throwing t'other into shade, the illusion was complete, so that one could scarcely have been more astonished had a leaf fallen from the hanging flowers or a face looked over the balcony. In short; 'twas prodigious.
Nevertheless, the painter, looking up at his work with half-closed, critical eyes, seemed dissatisfied, and asking us if we found nothing lacking, we (not to appear behindhand in judgment) agreed that on one side there was a vacant place which might yet be adorned to advantage.
"Yes," says he, "I see what is wanted and will supply it. That," adds he; gently turning to Moll, "will give me still another day."
"Why, what charm can you add that is not there?" asks she.
"Something," says he, in a low voice, "which I must see whenever I do cast my eyes heavenwards."
And now Moll, big with her purpose, which she had hitherto withheld from Dario, begs him to come into her state room, and there she told how she would have this ceiling plastered over and painted, like her dining-hall, if he would undertake to do it.
Dario casts his eye round the room and over the ceiling, and then, shaking his head, says: "If I were in your place, I would alter nothing here."
"But I will have it altered," says she, nettled, because he did not leap at once at her offer, which was made rather to prolong their communion than to obtain a picture. "I detest these old-fashioned beams of wood."