I suppose the Senator knew that momma didn't love Domenichino, and would possibly be at a loss to say why; at all events, he remarked that, talking of Capri, he hoped the Miss Binghams had not felt as badly about inconveniencing the donkeys that took them to the top of the cliff as momma had. "Mrs. Wick," he informed them, "rode an ass by the name of Michael Angelo, perfectly accustomed to the climate, and, do you believe it, she held her parasol over that animal's head the whole way." At which everybody laughed, and momma, invested with an original and amiable weakness, was appeased.
"Of Michelangelo we have not here much," said the guide patiently. "Drawings yes, and one holy Family—magnificent! But all in another room w'ich——"
"Now what Bramley said about the Ufizzi was this," continued the Senator. "'You'll see on those walls,' he said, 'the best picture show in the world, both for pedigree and quality of goods displayed. I'd go as far as to say they're all worth looking at, even those that have been presented to the institution. But don't you look at them,' Bramley said, 'as a whole. You keep all your absorbing-power for one apartment,' he said—'the Tribune. You'll want it.' Bramley gave me to understand that it wasn't any use he didn't profess to be able to describe his sublimer emotions, but when he sat down in the Tribune he had a sort of instinctive idea that he'd got the cream of it—he didn't want to go any further."
We decided, therefore, in spite of such minor attractions as those of Niobe and her daughters, at once to achieve the Tribune, feeling, as poppa said, that it would be most unfortunate to have our admiration all used up before we reached it. The guide led the way, and it was beguiled with the fascinating experience of the Miss Binghams, who had met Queen Marguerite driving in the Villa Borghese at Rome and had received a bow from her Majesty of which nothing would ever be able to deprive them. "Of course we drew up to let her pass," said Miss Nancy, "and were careful not to make ourselves in any way conspicuous, merely standing up in the carriage as an ordinary mark of respect. And she looked charming, all in pink and white, with a faded old maid of honour that set her off beautifully, didn't she, Cora? And such a pretty smile she gave us—they say she likes the better class of Americans."
"Oh, we've nothing to regret about Rome," rejoined Cora. "Even Peter's toe. I wouldn't have kissed it at the time if the guide hadn't said it was really Jupiter's. I was sure our dear vicar wouldn't mind my kissing Jupiter's toe. But now I'm glad I did it in any case. People always ask you that."
When we arrived at the little octagonal treasure chamber Mr. Dod and Miss Cora sat down together on one of the less conspicuous sofas, and I saw that Dicky was already warmed to confidence. Momma at once gave up her soul to the young St. John, having had an engraving of it ever since she was a little girl, and the Senator went solemnly from canvas to canvas on tip-toe with a mind equally open to Job and the Fornarina. He assured Miss Nancy and me that Bramley was perfectly right in thinking everything of the Tribune, and with reference to the Dancing Fawn, that it was worth a visit to see Michael Angelo's notion of executing repairs to statuary alone. He gave the place the benefit of his most serious attention, pulling his beard a good deal before Titian's Venus (which poppa always did in connection with this goddess, however, entirely apart from the merit of the painting) and obviously making allowances for her of Medici on account of her great age. At the end of the hour we spent there it had the same effect upon him as upon Colonel Bramley, he did not wish to go any further; and we parted from the Miss Binghams, who did. As I said good-bye to Miss Cora she gave my hand a subtly sympathetic pressure, whispered tenderly, "He's very nice," and roguishly escaped before I could ask who was, or what difference it made. Having thought it over, I took the first opportunity of inquiring of Dicky how much of his private affairs he had unburdened to Miss Cora. "Oh," said he, "hardly anything. She knows a former young lady friend of mine in Syracuse—we still exchange Christmas cards—and that led me on to say I thought of getting married this winter. Of course I didn't mention Isabel."
CHAPTER XVIII.
Out of indulgence to Dicky we lingered in Florence three or four days longer than was at all convenient, considering, as the Senator said, the amount of ground we had to cover before we could conscientiously recross the Channel. But neither poppa nor momma were people to desert a fellow-countryman in distress in foreign parts, especially in view of this one's pathetic reliance upon our sympathy and support, as a family. We all did our best toward the distraction of what momma called his poor mind, though I cannot say that we were very successful. His poor mind seemed wholly taken up with one anticipative idea, and whatever failed to minister to that he hadn't, as poppa sadly said, any use for. The cloisters of San Marco had no healing for his spirit, and when we directed his attention to the solitary painting on the wall with which Fra Angelico made a shrine of each of its monastic cubicles he merely remarked that it was more than you got in most hotels, and turned joylessly away. Even the charred stick that helped to martyr Savonarola left him cold. He said, indifferently, that it was only the natural result of mixing up politics and religion, and that certain Chicago ministers who supported Bryan from the pulpit might well take warning. But his words were apathetic; he did not really care whether those Chicago ministers went to the stake or not. We stood him before the bronze gates of Ghiberti, and walked him up and down between rows of works in pietra dura, but without any permanent effect, and when he contemplated the consecrated residences of Cimabue and Cellini, we could see that his interest was perfunctory, and that out of the corner of his eye he really considered passing fiacres. I read to him aloud from "Romola," and momma bought him an English and Italian washing book that he might keep a record of his camicie and his fazzoletti—it would be so interesting afterwards, she thought—while the Senator exerted himself in the way of cheerful conversation, but it was very discouraging. Even when we dined at the fashionable open air restaurant in the Cascine, with no less a person than Ouida, in a fluff of grey hair and black lace, at the next table, and the most distinguished gambler of the Italian aristocracy presenting a narrow back to us from the other side, he permitted poppa to compare the quality of the beef fillets unfavourably with those of New York in silence, and drank his Chianti with a lack-lustre eye.
Towards the end of the week, however, Dicky grew remorseful. "It's all very well," he said to me privately, "for Mrs. Wick to say that she could spend a lifetime in Florence, if the houses only had a few modern conveniences. I daresay she could—and as for your poppa, he's as patient as if this were a Washington hotel and he had a caucus every night, but it's as plain as Dante's nose that the Senator's dead sick of this city."