Stunned and stupefied, the man opened the door and fled.
V
David Rossi came out with his long slow step, looking pale but calm, and tearing a letter into small pieces, which he threw into the fire.
"What was amiss, sir? They could hear you across the street," said Bruno.
"A man whose room was better than his company, that's all."
"What's his name?" said Bruno.
"Charles Minghelli."
"Why, that must be the secretary who was suspected of forgery at the Embassy in London, and got dismissed."
"I thought as much!" said David Rossi. "No doubt the man attributed his dismissal to the Prime Minister, and wanted to use me for his private revenge."
"That was his game, was it? Why didn't you let me know, sir? He would have gone downstairs like a falling star. Now that I remember, he's the nephew of old Polomba, the Mayor, and I've seen him at Donna Roma's."
A waiter in a white smock, with a large tin box on his head, entered the hall, and behind him came the old woman from the porter's lodge, with the wrinkled face and the red cotton handkerchief.
"Come in," cried Bruno. "I ordered the best dinner in the Trattoria, sir, and thought we might perhaps dine together for once."
"Good," said David Rossi.
"Here it is, a whole basketful of the grace of God, sir! Out with it, Riccardo," and while the women laid the table, Bruno took the dishes smoking hot from their temporary oven with its charcoal fire.
"Artichokes—good. Chicken—good again. I must be a fox—I was dreaming of chicken all last night! Gnocchi! (potatoes and flour baked). Agradolce! (sour and sweet). Fagioletti! (French beans boiled) and—a half-flask of Chianti! Who said the son of my mother couldn't order a dinner? All right, Riccardo; come back at Ave Maria."
The waiter went off, and the company sat down to their meal, Bruno and his wife at either end of the table, and David Rossi on the sofa, with the boy on his right, and the cat curled up into his side on the left, while the old woman stood in front, serving the food and removing the plates.
"Look at him!" said the old woman, who was deaf, pointing to David Rossi, with his two neighbours. "Now, why doesn't the Blessed Virgin give him a child of his own?"
"She has, mother, and here he is," said David Rossi.
"You'll let her give him a woman first, won't you?" said Bruno.
"Ah! that will never be," said David Rossi.
"What does he say?" said the old woman with her hand at her ear like a shell.
"He says he won't have any of you," bawled Bruno.
"What an idea! But I've heard men say that before, and they've been married sooner than you could say 'Hail Mary.'"
"It isn't an incident altogether unknown in the history of this planet, is it, mother?" said Bruno.
"A heart to share your sorrows and joys is something, and the man is not wise who wastes the chance of it," said the old woman. "Does he think parliaments will make up for it when he grows old and wants something to comfort him?"
"Hush, mother!" said Elena, but Bruno made mouths at her to let the old woman go on.
"As for me, I'll want somebody of my own about me to close my eyes when the time comes to put the sacred oil on them," said the old woman.
"If a man has dedicated his life to work for humanity," said David Rossi, "he must give up many things—father, mother, wife, child."
The corner of Elena's apron crept up to the corner of her eye, but the old woman, who thought the subject had changed, laughed and said:
"That's just what I say to Tommaso. 'Tommaso,' I say, 'if a man is going to be a policeman he must have no father, or mother, or wife, or child—no, nor bowels neither,' I say. And Tommaso says, 'Francesca,' he says, 'the whole tribe of gentry they call statesmen are just policemen in plain clothes, and I do believe they've only liberated Mr. Rossi as a trap to catch him again when he has done something.'"
"They won't catch you though, will they, mother?" shouted Bruno.
"That they won't! I'm deaf, praise the saints, and can't hear them."
A knock came to the door, and seizing his mace the boy ran and opened it. An old man stood on the threshold. He was one of David Rossi's pensioners. Ninety years of age, his children all dead, he lived with his grandchildren, and was one of the poor human rats who stay indoors all day and come out with a lantern at night to scour the gutters of the city for the refuse of cigar-ends.
"Come another night, John," said Bruno.
But David Rossi would not send him away empty, and he was going off with the sparkling eyes of a boy, when he said:
"I heard you in the piazza this morning, Excellency! Grand! Only sorry for one thing."
"And what was that, sonny?" asked Bruno.
"What his Excellency said about Donna Roma. She gave me a half-franc only yesterday—stopped the carriage to do it, sir."
"So that's your only reason. … " began Bruno.
"Good reason, too. Good-night, John!" said David Rossi, and Joseph closed the door.
"Oh, she has her virtues, like every other kind of spider," said Bruno.
"I'm sorry I spoke of her," said David Rossi.
"You needn't be, though. She deserved all she got. I haven't been two years in her studio without knowing what she is."
"It was the man I was thinking of, and if I had remembered that the woman must suffer. … "
"Tut! She'll have to make her Easter confession a little earlier, that's all."
"If she hadn't laughed when I was speaking. … "
"You're on the wrong track now, sir. That wasn't Donna Roma. It was the little Princess Bellini. She is always stretching her neck and screeching like an old gandery goose."
Dinner was now over, and the boy called for the phonograph. David Rossi went into the sitting-room to fetch it, and Elena went in at the same time to light the fire. She was kneeling with her back to him, blowing on to the wood, when she said in a trembling voice:
"I'm a little sorry myself, sir, if I may say so. I can't believe what they say about the mistress, but even if it's true we don't know her story, do we?"
Then the phonograph was turned on, and Joseph marched to the tune of "Swannee River" and the strains of Sousa's band.
"Mr. Rossi," said Bruno, between a puff and a blow.
"Yes?"
"Have you tried the cylinder that came first?"
"Not yet."
"How's that, sir?"
"The man who brought it said the friend who had spoken into it was dead." And then with a shiver, "It would be like a voice from the grave—I doubt if I dare hear it."
"Like a ghost speaking to a man, certainly—especially if the friend was