Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/199

Rh never do here, nor should ever have come—a lamb among our Lombard wolves. Had you no English lover, to kill Amilcare and prevent it?"

Molly thought of Gregory Drax, who had been upon the North seas at the time. Gregory Drax used to lean over the garden gate chewing straws. This he did by the hour together, to the perfect satisfaction of himself and understanding of the neighbours. Molly could not think that it would have led to the slaying of Amilcare.

"What was he like, this Gregorio?" asked Bianca Maria, suddenly alert when she had got his name smoothly.

Molly did her best—ruddy, blue-eyed, always blushing and laughing, fair-haired, very long arms. He was a marinajo.

"He sounds to be so," said Bianca Maria. Then she clapped her hands and summoned Lionardo.

The great man had no sooner appeared (noiselessly in the doorway, the inscrutable grey-beard) than she kissed her friend and bade her go with her women to the appointed quarters of the Nonesi. Lionardo gravely saluted her as she went rosy out. He had seen the Virgin in the lap of Saint Anne and cared no more for the poor original.

"Dear Lionardo," said the girl in the chair to the most learned man of her day, "you shall do me the favour to write a letter in Latin to a certain English lord, Messer Gregorio Dras, Marinajo, Londra."

"Principessa," said the great man, "I am ready. Recite your letter."