But the young man did not come out, and she climbed on till she had reached a door where a card, fixed with four wafers, informed the visitor that this Apartment had the good fortune to shelter.
Mario Ennio Colorni,
Ex-Organist and
Professor of the Violin.
It was not impressive to Regina, as she had seen it already. She had visited Gabrie several times. In the first instance the Master had written praying her to "scrutinise whether the environment were dangerous or doubtful, as all the houses in the San Lorenzo quarter were reputed to be."
Signora Colorni opened the door, a little woman with a black cap and blue spectacles. She did not immediately recognise the visitor, and hesitated childishly about allowing her to enter. Regina made her smell the violets, and said, in the Mantuan dialect—
"Don't you know me? How is Gabrie?"
The little woman, whom typhus fever had left bald, dumb, and nearly blind, smiled gently. Her little face was the face of a child who has put on Grandmother's cap and spectacles for fun. Regina walked on into the Apartment, crossed the passage, which was very clean and in which was a great smell of cooking, went into the little parlour, the half-shut window of which was veiled by a curtain of yellowish muslin. Through the open door she saw that Gabrie's room, in process of arranging by Signora Colorni, was empty.
She turned. The dumb woman smiled, and waved her hand to the window.
"What? Out? But she wrote to me she was ill in bed!"
The little woman shook her head, coughed, and touched her forehead to signify that Gabrie had certainly been ill. Then she smiled again, pointed to the window, took a chair, for they had come into the little room, and placed it before Regina.
"Will she soon be back? Where is she gone?"