“Because there isn’t any image of the Virgin,” said Estelle, lightly. “It’s our just having come in from the sunshine makes it seem dark. It’s getting lighter. Cheer up! It’s good for you.”
“It’ll make me lose three pounds, I shouldn’t wonder.”
They spoke in whispers, because when they had pulled the bell-knob and the door had swung open, a voice from incalculable altitudes had shouted, “Chi è?” They had answered, as instructed, “Amici,” and now they pictured somebody listening to their shuffling ascent.
At the top, in fact, stood Giovanna, who regarded them 167with an eye the color of strong black coffee and said, “Riverisco!”
The small old woman had a thin, bronze Dantesque face, molded by a thousand indignations–all directed against proper objects of indignation–to a settled severity; a face of narrow concentrated passions and perfect fidelity and a preference for few words. The friendly smiles of Aurora and Estelle produced in her a relenting. Courtesy here demanded a pleasant look, and Giovanna was always courteous. She stood aside for Gerald, who came to the very door to welcome these ladies.
The guests were now assembled. One of them was staying with Gerald–Abbé Johns, who had come for a few days from Leghorn, where he lived. The others were Mrs. Foss and Miss Seymour.
What had been in Mrs. Fane’s time the drawing-room had since become also a studio. The landlord had permitted his tenant to increase the light by extending the windows across the street-side wall. Beyond that, there were as few signs about of the art-trade as Gerald had affectations of the artist. The model-stand supporting books and things appeared like a low table; easel, canvases, portfolios, all the littering properties of a painter, had been shoved for the occasion into the next room, a spacious glory-hole which Giovanna did not permit to become dusty beyond the decent.
The result of removing, first, many of the things that made the room a drawing-room, then, most of the things that made it a studio, left the place rather bare. It was according to Gerald’s taste: few things in it, each having the merit of either beauty or interest, else the excuse of utility.
168Mrs. Foss had waited for Aurora’s arrival to make the tea. The feast was very simple. Gerald offered what his mother had used to offer. Giovanna cut the bread-and-butter as that genteel lady had taught her, and continued to buy the plum-cake at the same confectioner’s.
Aurora had come in from the sunshine and cold with January roses in her cheeks and exhilaration in her blood. At sight of her beloved Mrs. Foss she laughed for joy. She rejoiced also to see Miss Seymour, who was one of her “likes,” and she was immensely interested to meet the abbé, whom she knew to be Gerald’s best friend, even as Estelle was hers. She loved Gerald for having just these people to meet them at tea, the ones he himself thought most of. She felt sweetly flattered at being made one of a company so choicely wise and good.