always encouraged him to amuse himself, giving as a reason that there was no medicine like healthy happiness for a boy of delicate constitution.  Corbario, like Satan, knew the uses of truth, which are numerous and not all good.  Though Marcello would not have acknowledged it to himself, his stepfather had been nearer to him, and more necessary to him, than his mother, during several years; and besides, it was less hard to bear the loss of which he learned when he recovered, because it had befallen him during that dark and uncertain period of his illness that now seemed as if it had lasted for years, and whereby everything that had been before it belonged to a remote past.

Moreover, there was Regina, and there was youth, and there was liberty; and Corbario was at hand, always ready to encourage and satisfy his slightest whim, on the plea that a convalescent must be humoured at any cost, and that there would be time enough to consider what should be done with Regina after Marcello was completely recovered.  After all, Corbario told him, the girl had saved his life, and it was only right to be grateful, and she should be amply rewarded for all the trouble she had taken.  It would have been sheer cruelty to have sent her away to the country; and what was the cost of a quiet lodging for her in Trastevere, and of a few decent clothes, and of a respectable middle-aged woman-servant to take care of her?  Nothing at all; only a few francs, and Marcello was so rich!  Regina, also, was so very unusually well-behaved, and so perfectly docile, so long as she was allowed to see Marcello every day!  She did not care for dress at all, and was quite contented to wear black, with just a touch of some tender colour.  Corbario made it all very easy, and saw to everything, and he seemed to know just how such things were arranged.  He was so fortunate as to find a little house that had a quiet garden with an entrance on another street, all in very good condition because it had lately been used by a famous foreign painter who preferred to live in Trastevere, away from the interruptions and distractions of the growing city; and by a very simple transaction the house became the property of the minor, Marcello Consalvi, to do with as he thought fit.  This was much more convenient than paying rent to a tiresome landlord who might at any time turn his tenant out.  Corbario thought of everything.  Twice a week a gardener came, early in the morning, and soon the garden was really pretty; and the respectable woman-servant watered the flowers every evening just before sunset.  There was a comfortable Calcutta chair for Marcello in a shady corner, the very first time he came there, and Regina had learned how to make tea for him; for the respectable woman-servant knew how to do all sorts of things belonging to civilised life.  She was so intensely respectable and quiet that Marcello was almost afraid of her, until it occurred to him that as she took so much trouble, he ought to give her a present of money; and when he had done this twice, he somehow became aware that she was his devoted slave—­middle-aged and excessively respectable.  Folco was really a very good judge of character, Marcello thought, since he could at once pick out such a person from the great horde of the unemployed.