What was the relation of this singular couple?  Was he the most ardent of friends or the most reverent of lovers?  Did she regard him as an eccentric swain, whose benevolent admiration of her beauty she was not ill pleased to humour at this small cost of having him climb into her little parlour and gossip of summer nights?  With her decent and sombre dress, her simple gravity, and that fine piece of priestly needlework, she looked like some pious lay-member of a sisterhood, living by special permission outside her convent walls.  Or was she maintained here aloft by her friend in comfortable leisure, so that he might have before him the perfect, eternal type, uncorrupted and untarnished by the struggle for existence?  Her shapely hands, I observed, wore very fair and white; they lacked the traces of what is called honest toil.

“And the pictures, how do they come on?” she asked of Theobald, after a long pause.

“Finely, finely!  I have here a friend whose sympathy and encouragement give me new faith and ardour.”

Our hostess turned to me, gazed at me a moment rather inscrutably, and then tapping her forehead with the gesture she had used a minute before, “He has a magnificent genius!” she said, with perfect gravity.

“I am inclined to think so,” I answered, with a smile.

“Eh, why do you smile?” she cried.  “If you doubt it, you must see the bambino!” And she took the lamp and conducted me to the other side of the room, where on the wall, in a plain black frame, hung a large drawing in red chalk.  Beneath it was fastened a little howl for holy water.  The drawing represented a very young child, entirely naked, half nestling back against his mother’s gown, but with his two little arms outstretched, as if in the act of benediction.  It was executed with singular freedom and power, and yet seemed vivid with the sacred bloom of infancy.  A sort of dimpled elegance and grace, mingled with its boldness, recalled the touch of Correggio.  “That’s what he can do!” said my hostess.  “It’s the blessed little boy whom I lost.  It’s his very image, and the Signor Teobaldo gave it me as a gift.  He has given me many things besides!”

I looked at the picture for some time and admired it immensely.  Turning back to Theobald I assured him that if it were hung among the drawings in the Uffizi and labelled with a glorious name it would hold its own.  My praise seemed to give him extreme pleasure; he pressed my hands, and his eyes filled with tears.  It moved him apparently with the desire to expatiate on the history of the drawing, for he rose and made his adieux to our companion, kissing her band with the same mild ardour as before.  It occurred to me that the offer of a similar piece of gallantry on my own part might help me to know what manner of woman she was.  When she perceived my intention she withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes solemnly, and made me a severe curtsey.  Theobald took my arm and led me rapidly into the street.