“My prescription, Miss Taylor, is that you stay at home this afternoon and rest.”
“I have an engagement to go to the Aventino....”
“You mustn’t. You’re tired. You look worse every day and you’re losing flesh. You must rest, or you sha’n’t have the card for the low mass.”
The German ladies laughed. Miss Taylor, flattered, in an ecstasy of delight, gave her promise. She looked at the pock-marked gentleman as though she expected to hear the judgement of Solomon fall from his lips.
Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs. Cornélie rose:
“May I give you a glass out of my bottle?” asked the stout gentleman. “Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If so, I’ll order a fiasco for you in the Via della Croce.”
Cornélie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was deliciously pure. She thought that it would be a good thing to drink a pure wine in Rome; and, as she reflected, the stout gentleman seemed to read her quick thought:
“It is a good thing,” he said, “to drink a strengthening wine while you are in Rome, where life is so tiring.”
Cornélie agreed.
“This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five the fiasco. It will last you a long time: the wine keeps. So I’ll order you a fiasco.”