“I will tell you.”
Laura saw that she could not convince her brother, and returned to the salon. A moment before dinner was announced Cæsar got dressed again in black, put on his patent-leather shoes, looked at himself offhandedly in the mirror, saw that he was all right, and joined his sister.
V. THE ABBE PRECIOZI. THE BIG BIRDS IN ROME
The next day Cæsar awoke at nine, jumped out of bed, and went to breakfast. Laura had left word that she would not eat at home. Cæsar took an umbrella and went out into the street. The weather was very dark but it held off from rain.
Cæsar took the Via Nazionale toward the centre of town. Among the crowd, some foreigners with red guide-books in their hands, were walking with long strides to see the sights of Rome, which the code of worldly snobbishness considers it indispensable to admire.
Cæsar had no settled goal. On a plan of the city, hung in a newspaper kiosk, he found the situation of the Piazza Esedra, the hotel and the adjacent streets, and continued slowly ahead.
“How many people there must be who are excited and have an irregular pulse on arriving for the first time in one of these historic towns,” thought Cæsar. “I, for my part, was in that situation the first time I clearly understood the mechanism of the London Exchange.”
Cæsar continued down the Via Nazionale and stopped in a small square with a little garden and a palm. Bounding the square on one side arose a greenish wall, and above this wall, which was adorned with statues, stretched a high garden with magnificent trees, and among them a great stone pine.
“A beautiful garden to walk in,” said Cæsar. “Perhaps it is an historic spot, perhaps it isn’t. I am very happy that I don’t know either its name or its history, if it really has one.” From the same point in the Via Nazionale, a street with flights of steps could be seen to the left, and below a white stone column.