"You may rest assured," said I, "that I shall not say a word to her."
"And now," said she, "shall we put aside what I have written to-day, and go back to Genoa? The last thing you dictated yesterday was this: 'Into this very building once came the old Crusaders to borrow money for their journeys to the Holy Land.'"
We went to Genoa.
"How admirably," I exclaimed, when she had gone, "with what wonderful tact and skill she has managed the whole affair! Not one word about the occurrences of yesterday, not an allusion which could embarrass either herself or me. If only she had looked at me! But she had probably received instructions on that point which she did not mention, and it is easy to perceive that she is honest and conscientious."
But after all it was not necessary that I should see her face. I had seen it, and I could never forget it.
Whistling was not enough for me that day; I sang.
"What puts you into such remarkably good spirits?" asked my grandmother. "Have you reached an unusually interesting part of your work?"
"Indeed I have," I answered, and I gave her such a glowing account of the way the Red Cross Knights, the White Cross Knights, and the Black Cross Knights clanked through the streets of Genoa, before setting sail to battle for the Great Cross, that the cheeks of the old lady flushed and her eyes sparkled with enthusiastic emotion.
"I don't wonder it kindles your soul to write about such things," she said.