I wished to see him safely to his own door, but he waved me back and walked away with an air of resolution, whistling and swinging his cane.  I waited a moment, and then followed him at a distance, and saw him proceed to cross the Santa Trinita Bridge.  When he reached the middle he suddenly paused, as if his strength had deserted him, and leaned upon the parapet gazing over into the river.  I was careful to keep him in sight; I confess that I passed ten very nervous minutes.  He recovered himself at last, and went his way, slowly and with hanging head.

That I had really startled poor Theobald into a bolder use of his long-garnered stores of knowledge and taste, into the vulgar effort and hazard of production, seemed at first reason enough for his continued silence and absence; but as day followed day without his either calling or sending me a line, and without my meeting him in his customary haunts, in the galleries, in the Chapel at San Lorenzo, or strolling between the Arno side and the great hedge-screen of verdure which, along the drive of the Cascine, throws the fair occupants of barouche and phaeton into such becoming relief—­as for more than a week I got neither tidings nor sight of him, I began to fear that I had fatally offended him, and that, instead of giving a wholesome impetus to his talent, I had brutally paralysed it.  I had a wretched suspicion that I had made him ill.  My stay at Florence was drawing to a close, and it was important that, before resuming my journey, I should assure myself of the truth.  Theobald, to the last, had kept his lodging a mystery, and I was altogether at a loss where to look for him.  The simplest course was to make inquiry of the beauty of the Mercato Vecchio, and I confess that unsatisfied curiosity as to the lady herself counselled it as well.  Perhaps I had done her injustice, and she was as immortally fresh and fair as be conceived her.  I was, at any rate, anxious to behold once more the ripe enchantress who had made twenty years pass as a twelvemonth.  I repaired accordingly, one morning, to her abode, climbed the interminable staircase, and reached her door.  It stood ajar, and as I hesitated whether to enter, a little serving-maid came clattering out with an empty kettle, as if she had just performed some savoury errand.  The inner door, too, was open; so I crossed the little vestibule and entered the room in which I had formerly been received.  It had not its evening aspect.  The table, or one end of it, was spread for a late breakfast, and before it sat a gentleman—­an individual, at least, of the male sex—­doing execution upon a beefsteak and onions, and a bottle of wine.  At his elbow, in friendly proximity, was placed the lady of the house.  Her attitude, as I entered, was not that of an enchantress.  With one hand she held in her lap a plate of smoking maccaroni; with the other she had lifted high in air one of the pendulous filaments of this succulent compound, and was in the act of slipping it gently down her throat.  On the uncovered end of the table, facing her companion, were ranged half a dozen small statuettes, of some snuff-coloured substance resembling terra-cotta.  He, brandishing his knife with ardour, was apparently descanting on their merits.