Bruno ought to have learned never to hope.
But his temper was courageous and sanguine: such madmen hope on to the very end.
He put the things down on the settle, and went to put up the mule. The little rose-tree had been too roughly blown in the windy afternoon; its flowers were falling, and some soon strewed the floor.
Bruno looked at it when he entered.
It hurt him; as the star Argol had done.
He covered the food with a cloth, and set the flower out of the draught. Then he went to see his sheep.
There was no train by the seaway from Rome until night. Signa would not come that way now, since he had to be in the town for the evening.
"He will come after the theatre," Bruno said to himself, and tried to get the hours away by work. He did not think of going into the city again himself. He was too proud to go and see a thing he had never been summoned to; too proud to stand outside the doors and stare with the crowd while Pippa's son was honoured within.
Besides, he could not have left the lambs all a long winter's night; and the house all unguarded; and nobody there to give counsel to the poor mute simpleton whom he had now to tend his beasts.
"He will come after the theatre," he said.