Then we fell silent, and the shadows of the sadness I had left behind me seemed to shut out the kindly stars. I would have taken my arm away, but that the Countess drew it nearer to herself, clasping her hands about it, and said softly—
"Tell me more—" and then, after a little pause, she added, "and you may call me Lucia! For have you not saved my life?"
Like a dream the old Edinburgh room, where with Giovanni Turazza I read the Tuscan poets, came to me. An ancient rhyme was in my head, and ere I was aware I murmured—
"Saint Lucy of the Eyes!"
The Countess started as if she had been stung.
"No, not that—not that," she said; "I am not good enough."
There was some meaning in the phrase to her which was not known to me.
"You are good enough to be an angel—I am sure," I said—foolishly, I fear.
There was a little silence, and a waft of scented air like balm—I think the perfume of her hair, or it may have been the roses clambering on the wall. I know not. We were passing some.
"No," she said, very firmly, "not so, nor nearly so—only good enough to desire to be better, and to walk here with you and listen to you telling of your mother."