“Yes, fortunately the beauty is always here. What form of it,” I asked, “do you prefer?”
My companion looked a little mystified; and at last he said, “I am very fond of the pictures.”
“So was I. And among the pictures, which do you like best?”
“Oh, a great many.”
“So did I; but I had certain favourites.”
Again the young man hesitated a little, and then he confessed that the group of painters he preferred, on the whole, to all others, was that of the early Florentines.
I was so struck with this that I stopped short. “That was exactly my taste!” And then I passed my hand into his arm and we went our way again.
We sat down on an old stone bench in the Cascine, and a solemn blank-eyed Hermes, with wrinkles accentuated by the dust of ages, stood above us and listened to our talk.
“The Countess Salvi died ten years ago,” I said.
My companion admitted that he had heard her daughter say so.