"The second hour of the day, it was," she replied, "when I went out to buy milk for your chocolate. There were but two of them then. They asked me if you were in the house. I said no. They said that you had killed a frate, and I, that I was sure he had deserved it. One of them laughed and said that had nothing to do with it; he had been sent there to be killed. The other one, that black-browed fellow who stabbed his comrade, said nothing at all, but just looked at me hard. He never took his eyes away once, so I guessed how his barque was steering, and you saw what wind I blew."
"I saw it, Virginia."
"And disapproved! Per esempio, you disapproved!" Tears filled her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders, pitying herself. "Povera Virginia!" she said.
This made me ashamed enough to say, "Dear Virginia, I know that you acted for my safety."
"Yes, I did! Yes, I did! But I would do worse. Ah, you little know how bad I would make myself. And you reproach me—" She was on the edge of a frenzy, but checked herself. "What does it matter now that you are safe? We will stop in the Sagrestia all night. They will never look for you there."
"But, my dear," said I, "we have three hours to wait before the Sagrestia is opened. Do you ask me to stay here, in this cloister, for that time?"
She looked embarrassed, for the truth is that she would have asked me if
I had not spoken of it. She had forgotten that I was not of her nation.
"No, no," she said hastily, "that is ridiculous. How could I ask you to
do such a thing as that? The question!"
"I am glad of it," I returned, "because there I can't oblige you. I must break my fast, so must you. By the time we have done, the Sagrestia may be ready for us. Observe also that in spending the night in that place I am obliging you, for I don't at all see why we should do it."
She searched my face with those grey eyes of hers, hunting my raillery out. The thing above all which she dreaded was to be laughed at. She never laughed herself, except bitterly, in anger, and hated the indulgence. Suspecting still what she failed to find, she fell in with my desire to eat, though she must have thought it preposterous, and me a madman to have it. She could never understand my attachment to custom, and never think of more than one thing at a time. Just now she was engaged in hiding me from justice—to succeed in which task she would have sat still for an eternity and gone without a thousand meals. What an outcry she must have had ready for me—and how she must have loved her hard taskmaster! She did violence to all her feelings, fell in with my desire at once.
"Naturally, Don Francis, you must eat. Naturally, I must eat. Naturally, by the time we have finished, the Sagrestia will be open. Very good, Don Francis. But as to spending the night in the Sagrestia, shall I be impertinent if I tell you that by this time there is not a locanda in Florence that has not got a full and exact description of you and me, and not a landlord among them that would not hand you over for two baiocchi?"