After a while Gemma moved restlessly. “Orazio, per carità! Your hand is so hot and sticky! I shall change places with Carmela,” she said. She released her fingers from the young man’s grasp with the air of one crushing a forward insect or removing a bramble from the path, and she actually beckoned to her sister to come.
Orazio flushed red and he seemed about to speak as Carmela rose from her seat, but the aunt interposed hurriedly.
“Sit still, Gemma, you are tired or you would not speak so. The lights hurt your eyes and make your head ache.”
“Yes, I am tired,” the girl said wearily. “I slept ill last night. Forgive me, Orazio, if I was cross. I am sorry.”
Her dull submission touched Olive with a sudden sense of pity and of fear, but Orazio was blind and deaf to all things written between the lines of life, and he could not interpret it.
“I do not always understand you,” he said stiffly, and he would not relax until presently she drew nearer to him of her own accord.
CHAPTER IX
The Vicolo dei Moribondi is the narrowest of all the steep stone-paved streets that lead from the upper town to the market-place of Siena, and the great red bulk of the Palazzo Pubblico overshadows it. Olive had come that way once from the Porta Romana, and seeing the legend: “Affitasi una camera” displayed in the doorway of one of the shabby houses, had been moved to climb the many stairs to see the room in question.