He therefore answered with an inconsolable air--'How wretchedly
unfortunate! I am obliged to be at a lunch in a quarter of an hour. I
accepted the invitation a week ago, but if I had known, I would have
found some way of getting out of it--What a nuisance!'
'Oh, then you must go without losing a moment--you will be late.'
He looked at his watch.
'I can walk a little further with you.'
'Mamma, do let us go up the steps,' begged Delfina. 'I went up yesterday
with Miss Dorothy. You should see it!'
They turned back and crossed the square. A child followed them
persistently, offering a great branch of flowering almond, which Andrea
bought and presented to Delfina. Blonde ladies issued from the hotels
armed with red Baedekers; clumsy hackney coaches with two horses jogged
past with a glint of brass on their oldfashioned harness; the
flower-sellers thrust their overflowing baskets in front of the
strangers, vociferating at the pitch of their voices.
'Will you promise me,' Andrea said to Donna Maria, as they began to
ascend the steps--'will you promise me not to go to the Villa Medici
without me? Give it up for to-day--please do.'
For a moment she seemed preoccupied by sad thoughts, then she answered:
'Very well, I will give it up.'
'Thanks!'
Before them the great stairway rose triumphantly, its sun-warmed steps
giving out a gentle heat, the stone itself having the polished gleam of
old silver like that of the fountains at Schifanoja.
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