Giannella, too much overcome to say a word, kissed the extended hand and withdrew to digest her misery in the outer room while Mariuccia should receive her own particular scolding. Giannella's world had slipped from under her feet. Even her trust in Rinaldo was shaken. As for speaking of him—her adored, beautiful Rinaldo—to the terrible Princess—she felt that it would have been easier and quite as useful to jump out of the window. Perhaps he was in reality like the wicked men of whose existence she had shudderingly learned; but that was hard to believe. Only that morning he had looked at her with such a light of truth in his dark eyes, had told her so joyfully about the big picture—and then, with such poignant regret, that the purchaser was leaving in a few days and insisted on its being completed, so that every moment of daylight must go to it, and Rinaldo feared he could not even come to Mass till next Sunday. Would Giannella remember to pray for him till then? He would be needing it so badly. And Giannella had laughingly replied that the next day was Sunday, when he must certainly come and pray for himself. And on that they had shaken hands for the first time. It was like sealing a compact. And when his fingers touched hers he had opened his lips as if to speak—and had kept back the words with an evident effort. Oh, she knew what they would have been. But of course he was too honorable to let them pass his lips before he had Mariuccia's sanction. Did Mariuccia dream of anything? Was it possible that she was even now making out some kind of a case for her wretched Giannella against the plausible, desirable, unendurable Professor? What a time she was in there! And then the door opened and Mariuccia came towards her with averted eyes and a silent shake of the head, and Giannella saw that all was lost. Her only ally had succumbed, like herself. Who were they, poor women of the people, to argue or reason with authority in high places?
They returned home silently, Giannella too sick at heart to discuss the sentence which destiny seemed to have passed upon her, and Mariuccia so angry with everything and everybody that she was ferociously sulky all day. The Professor wisely stayed away till the evening, so as to give the Princess's admonitions time to sink in. When he came back for supper, expecting to find Giannella all submission and repentance, he was curtly informed that she was not well and had been sent to bed. And Mariuccia would not tell him a single word of what had taken place at the interview of the morning. What was more, he caught a glimpse of a magnificent pile of fruit and vegetables on the kitchen table (one of Rinaldo's now constant sendings from the vigna), and when his tray appeared it was disappointingly empty of what he considered his dues of the bounties which his servant's relatives seemed to have been sending her of late with such praiseworthy generosity. This symptom appeared to him most ominous. It could only indicate a most unusual state of things and pointed clearly to open revolt. Well, with the Princess away the worst danger had passed; he argued only good from Giannella's indisposition; she was preparing to meet him in the right spirit, and a few hours must be granted her in which to accustom her mind to the new dispensation. Now for the article on the Cardinal's inestimable fragment.
Giannella herself could scarcely have catalogued her thoughts as she sat the next morning at the window of the workroom; she only knew that she wished to keep out of the padrone's way and that to this inner fortress he never ventured to penetrate. She had a headache and a heartache and felt quite ill enough to justify Mariuccia's statement. She almost hoped, with the delightful audacity of youth, that she was going to die. That appeared to be the shortest and most becoming way out of her troubles.
Just as she had reached this conclusion there was a shadow of wings on the window ledge, and then Themistocles alighted there, his head on one side and an alluring air of hope and mystery in his bearing. Giannella reached down for the little basket of grain which always stood under the work-table, and when she raised her head again the pigeon hopped in and began to peck from her hand. Suddenly she gave a little cry and leaned over to look closer. There was a bit of ribbon under the collar round his neck, and, peeping out from beneath one wing, a minute fold of paper. He had brought her a message from Rinaldo! With trembling fingers she untied the ribbon, and drew forth from its plumed resting-place a three-cornered note, which she opened in a tumult of happiness. The color flushed up to her temples and her eyes shone when she found a leaf of verbena pasted to the paper, and two words written beneath, "Amicizia eterna."
Eternal friendship! That was all he had dared to say, but how much it meant. Love in the respectful dress of friendship—that meant eternal love. Giannella raised the little leaf to her cheek, smelt its delicate perfume, brought it to her lips and kissed it once, twice, a dozen times. Its fragrance seemed to speak of all happy things, it gave her back her courage, her buoyancy, her very life. Should she answer? Ah no, that would be too bold; besides, there was no word in her vocabulary that would express the delicate ecstacy that filled her heart. Yet she would send something—a leaf of the rose geranium there, sweet as the verbena itself, and meaning, as she remembered from old sentimental friendships at the convent, "Constancy under suffering." There was nothing unmaidenly in that.
Her nimble fingers, still so white and fine, gathered the leaf, folded it in thin paper, and attached it to the ribbon. Themistocles was busily engaged on the Indian corn when she tied it on. Having picked up the last grain he perched for a moment on the window ledge, glanced this way and that, then flung himself off into the quivering sunshot blue of the noon, rose, and flew steadily away over the monastery roof.
"You make me a liar!" exclaimed Mariuccia, coming in a few minutes later and looking at the suddenly recovered invalid with delighted astonishment. "I told the padrone you were ill."
"So I am," replied Giannella, laughing for joy, "too ill to see him to-day. Oh, Mariuccia, if you love me just a little let me stay in here. I cannot wait on the padrone this morning."
"Rest easy, figlia mia, you shall not," the old woman promised. "I told him you were hot and cold, and consumed with fever. You looked like that an hour or two ago, so I shall not get a sore tongue this time."