"You would know where to find a man with four good horses for the signore's carriage?" he asked; and accepting Cantelucci's low bow as an affirmative, addressed himself to Cosmo. "The road's perfectly safe. The country's full of Austrian troops."
"I think I would prefer to go by sea," said Cosmo, who had not thought of making any arrangements for the journey. Instantly Cantelucci glided away, while the doctor emitted a grunt and applied himself to his dinner. Cosmo thought desperately, "Oh, yes, the sea, why not by sea, away from everybody?" He had been rolling and bumping on the roads, good, bad, and indifferent, in dust or mud, meeting in inns ladies and gentlemen for days and days between Paris and Genoa, and for a moment he was fascinated by the notion of a steady gliding progress in company of three or four bronzed sailors over a blue sea in sight of a picturesque coast of rocks and hills crowded with pines, with opening valleys, with white villages, and purple promontories of lovely shape. It was like a dream which lasted till the doctor was heard suddenly saying, "I think I could find somebody that would take your travelling carriage off your hands"—and the awakening came with an inward recoil of all Cosmo's being, as if before a vision of irrevocable consequences.
The doctor lowered his eyelids. "He is changed," he said to himself. "Oh yes, he is changed." This, however, did not prevent him from feeling irritated by Cosmo's lack of response to the offer to dispose of his travelling carriage.
"There are many people that would consider themselves lucky to have such an offer made to them," he remarked, after a period of silence. "It is not so easy at this time to get rid of a travelling carriage. Nor yet to have an opportunity to hire a dependable man with four good horses if you want to go by land. I mean at a time like this when anything may happen any day."
"I am sure I am very much obliged to you," said Cosmo, "but I am really in no hurry."
The doctor took notice of Cosmo's languid attitude and the untouched plate before him.
"The trouble is that you don't seem to have any aim at all. Isn't that it?"
"Yes. I confess," said Cosmo carelessly. "I think I want a rest."
"Well, Mr. Latham, you had better see that you get it, then. This place isn't restful, it is merely dull. And then suppose you were suddenly to perceive an aim, such for instance as a visit to Elba—you may be too late if you linger unduly. You know, you are not likely to see a specimen like that one over there again in your lifetime. And even he may not be with us very long."
"You seem very positive about that," said Cosmo, looking at his interlocutor searchingly. "This is the third or fourth time that I hear that sort of allusion from you. Have you any special information?"