The painter grasped the oars and pushed out into the stream: "Good-bye," he called, and Graziosa waved a hand; then something in the stranger's aspect made the little painter pause again.
"Gladly would we offer our poor hospitality, messer," he said, "only the gates are sternly barred to any stranger...." But Graziosa, glancing also at the strong, commanding figure, and the stern set face, checked her father's impulse.
"We are too humble, father," she said gently, "but if there were any service we could render, any message—? We live at the sign of Lo Scudo, the armorer's, near to the western gate."
"I will remember it," said Francisco simply.
Graziosa drew her blue cloth hood about her smiling face, and, with gentle strokes from the painter's paddle, the boat disappeared.
When Francisco found himself alone again, momentary misgiving seized him that he had lost an opportunity.
Could these folk have been of service? They were of a sort unknown to him; courtiers, soldiers, burghers, merchants, with all such he was at home, but these plebeians of kindly natures and good speech, of humble rank and careless happiness, were new to him. The painter's talk of his craft had had no meaning for Francisco, it had passed from his mind for craziness; but the girl had said they dwelt near the western gate—could they perchance have been of service? But presently he dismissed the notion; they were too simple for his purpose.
Raging in the pain of rekindled memory and present helplessness, Francisco paced to and fro, waiting for Vittore's figure in the distance.
Suddenly his eyes rested again on the great clump of yellow lichen, and he stopped, arrested.
In the midst of it he had seen something that interested him, something very much its color, but not quite its kind.