But Anne did not hesitate. With a lithe movement she was out of bed. Twisting the brazen rope of hair about her small head, she fastened it with a massive gold hairpin. Then, a mediæval princess, in trailing green draperies, she swept from the room.
Left alone, Regina thrust hands and eyes to heaven and called out upon her picturesque God. Then she shrugged with Italian fatalism and despair. What else could she have expected? It had been so from the very first. Anne had always had her own way, ever since she herself had gone to her as nurse when as a little girl they had lived in the palazzo in Florence and her father had been the American consul. Married and a widow, she still remained the same wilful child in the eyes of the faithful, long-suffering, old woman.
With a shake of the white head, she followed her mistress out into the narrow hallway and watched disapprovingly, as she disappeared into the opposite room.
It was cold in there and Anne shivered a little as she entered. The fog shimmered in from the open window, writhing itself between her and the recumbent figure on the bed. Like Regina, she closed the window, although less violently, smiling the while to herself at the similarity of their action. Approaching the bed, she looked down upon the sleeper. He was flushed and breathing irregularly, and Anne was glad she had not trusted to Regina’s optimistic inspection. For his hand and forehead were burning and her touch did not arouse him. Rather alarmed, she took him by the shoulders and shook him gently. He muttered, and opening his eyes, gazed up at her, at first vacantly, then with dawning dread.
Although her heart beat a little faster, she smiled serenely down upon him. “Well?”
He turned his head away quickly, and for a moment the unnatural flush was replaced by the glistening pallor of the day before.
“I must get up. I must go back,” he said self-consciously. “I have trespassed upon you most shamefully. What can you think of me?” Still avoiding her eye, he sat up in bed and ran an unsteady hand through his tumbled hair.
The serene smile upon her lips, she shook her head.
“Do you really want to know what I think? I think you are going to stay right here, young man, for unless I am much mistaken, you have fever, and if that is the case, I shall not permit you to get up at all!”
He tossed his blonde mane impatiently.