compliments passed. Virginia, however, steered her way to her main purpose through the tangle of confessions, excuses and refusals which they forced upon her; but I suppose she had to give some ground, for presently two of their heads came very close to hers. I saw their eager faces and Virginia's considering look. It was a courtship. She was playing her part, and they believed her to be what she appeared. That applied only to two of the three; the third, he who watched her so closely and said nothing, held apart. He had an ugly look. The others, absorbed in the pursuit, took no notice of him; but I kept my eyes upon him, and was not at all surprised at what followed.
Virginia, after long debate, pretended to yield. Something was proposed to her; she considered it. It was pressed upon her by two ardent voices; she looked awry and laughed. The chase quickened--one of the men took her hand, the other brought a coin from his pocket, spat on it, and pressed it on her. As she hesitated with the money on her palm, the silent watcher of all this whipped out a long knife and drove it into his comrade's back between the shoulders. He groaned deeply, flung his arms out and fell. The fourth man came running over the Piazza from his point, Virginia shrieked and ran back to the house. I saw--as if invisible barriers had been removed--men, women and boys come running in from all side streets. It was like a performance in a theatre.
Virginia, white and shaking, stood in my presence. "It is you they want, Francis, I have heard all. You must go at once--at once."
"What were you doing with the sbirri?" I asked her.
"They made love to me, all three of them; but that dark man meant it, and the others not. It is very fortunate--it will give us time, which we need. Your Count Giraldi is in the country, as I told you he would be. There is no warrant. Come, we will be off. It will be perfectly safe while this confusion lasts. Dress yourself, put on your cloak, take your sword and pistol and come."
"You, too, must be dressed, child."
"I?" said she. "No, I am better as I am. I can be of more use." But she had a wiser thought, it appears; for by the time I was ready, she looked modestly enough.
The plot, if plot it had been, had failed. I got out of the house unnoticed and unfollowed, Virginia with me in a hood. There were soldiers now in the Piazza, keeping back the crowd. The dead man lay there still, and his assailant wore shackles. Boys were racing in and out among the people singing the news which everybody knew. "Martirio d'un pio frate! Assassino per amore! Ohe! Ohe!"
We went down the Via Belle Donne and crossed a small Piazza, taking our way, said Virginia, to the Ghetto, where she thought we might be perfectly safe for the rest of the day. There were so many hunted men there, said she, that in the confusion some must needs get away. The curtains were drawn over the barbers' shops, all doors were shut--it was the hour of repose. A few beggars sat in converse on the steps of San Michele, many were asleep in the shade, there were no passengers, no sbirri to be seen until we reached the Via Campidoglio. Here Virginia drew me back into the shadow of a great house. "That way is stopped. They are watching the market. Come, we will try something else." I admired her resourceful audacity, and followed whither she chose to lead.
We ran up the Via Vecchietta without disturbance or alarm, and reached the church of San Lorenzo. We entered the cloister, which breathed the full summer, late as it was in the year. Bees hummed about the tree; the glossy leaves of the great magnolia seemed to radiate heat and glitter; above us the sky was of almost midsummer whiteness, and I could see the heat-waves flicker above the dome. "You shall hide in the Sagrestia to- night, if you will be ruled by me," Virginia said. "To-morrow morning before first Mass we will gain the Ghetto. I know a woman there who will keep us. My word, Don Francis, you little guess how near the Bargello you have been!"
I think she was eager for my praises, poor soul, by the shy light in her eyes--a kind of preparation for the blushes with which she always met any warmth in my tone. If I gave her none it was because she had displeased me by cheapening herself to the sbirri. But I was soon ashamed of myself.
I asked her, "When did you find out that the sbirri were waiting for me?"
"The second hour of the day, it was," she replied, "when I went out to buy milk for your chocolate. There were but two of them then. They asked me if you were in the house. I said no. They said that you had killed a frate, and I, that I was sure he had deserved it. One of them laughed and said that had nothing to do with it; he had been sent there to be killed. The other one, that black-browed fellow who stabbed his comrade, said nothing at all, but just looked at me hard. He never took his eyes away once, so I guessed how his barque was steering, and you saw what wind I blew."
"I saw it, Virginia."
"And disapproved! Per esempio, you disapproved!" Tears filled her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders, pitying herself. "Povera Virginia!" she said.
This made me ashamed enough to say, "Dear Virginia, I know that you acted for my safety."
"Yes, I did! Yes, I did! But I would do worse. Ah, you little know how bad I would make myself. And you reproach me--" She was on the edge of a frenzy, but checked herself. "What does it matter now that you are safe? We will stop in the Sagrestia all night. They will never look for you there."
"But, my dear," said I, "we have three hours to wait before the Sagrestia is opened. Do you ask me to stay here, in this cloister, for that time?"
She looked embarrassed, for the truth is that she would have asked me if I had not spoken of it. She had forgotten that I was not of her nation. "No, no," she said hastily, "that is ridiculous. How could I ask you to do such a thing as that? The question!"
"I am glad of it," I returned, "because there I can't oblige you. I must break my fast, so must you. By the time we have done, the Sagrestia may be ready for us. Observe also that in spending the night in that place I am obliging you, for I don't at all see why we should do it."
She searched my face with those grey eyes of hers, hunting my raillery out. The thing above all which she dreaded was to be laughed at. She never laughed herself, except bitterly, in anger, and hated the indulgence. Suspecting still what she failed to find, she fell in with my desire to eat, though she must have thought it preposterous, and me a madman to have it. She could never understand my attachment to custom, and never think of more than one thing at a time. Just now she was engaged in hiding me from justice--to succeed in which task she would have sat still for an eternity and gone without a thousand meals. What an outcry she must have had ready for me--and how she must have loved her hard taskmaster! She did violence to all her feelings, fell in with my desire at once.
"Naturally, Don Francis, you must eat. Naturally, I must eat. Naturally, by the time we have finished, the Sagrestia will be open. Very good, Don Francis. But as to spending the night in the Sagrestia, shall I be impertinent if I tell you that by this time there is not a locanda in Florence that has not got a full and exact description of you and me, and not a landlord among them that would not hand you over for two baiocchi?"
"How do you know that, my dear?" I asked.
She stretched out her arms. "How do I know? Hear him! How do I know that my mother is a woman and my father a man? Dio buono! Have I lived in my sty with my eyes shut? And herded with thieves, and taken them for marchesi? But you shall be fed, Don Francis. Leave that to me. Do you stay here quietly, I will get you some food."
I said that I must come with her, whereupon she began to cry bitterly, to call me heartless and cruel, to pity herself in the most deplorable terms. She nursed and fondled herself by name. "Povera Virginia! Poor little Virginia, that works so hard for her tyrant and gives herself no rest. But he is cruel--more cruel than if he beat her--stabs her heart with cold words, rends it with sharp fingers. Poor little Virginia, poor little outcast from the Madonna!"
I have not a heart of stone: I confess that her distress made me dreadfully ashamed. This good soul, whose only happiness lay in mine, who had trusted her all in all to me without flinching, whose life was now at my disposal as her honour had been for so long. Unworthy of the name of man had I been if I could wound her so lightly. I