They were not unwatched, however; for from behind an old column which stood there not many years ago--it may stand there still for aught I know--glided out the figure of our friend Antonio, and followed them at some distance, keeping in the deep shade cast by the rising sun upon the eastern side of the street. His keen sharp eye was fixed upon them with a suspicious and even anxious look; "By my faith," he said, "good old Master Esopas was right when he warned us not to warm vipers. I fear me still that one which I helped to save when he was tolerably well frost-bitten, will some day turn and bite me, or, what is worse, bite young Lorenzo. Perhaps I had better warn his youthful knighthood. He is mighty docile for a young man, and will take a hint from me. But then he knows I love him, and that is the secret of it, I do believe; for love's a rarity as this world goes, and, poor boy, having neither father nor mother, who is there to love him but Antonio. By Hercules! I had forgotten the signorina. I am half jealous of the girl, and the only way I can manage to escape being so quite is to love her myself. Ha! they are stopping at that gate; Ramiro lodges there for a score of ducats. Well, well, I will even go in after them, and have a chat with my friend the friar. It is well the holy man should know that he has an intimate acquaintance near."
By this time Lorenzo and the monk had disappeared under the archway and ascended a staircase on the right. It was dirty and dark enough, but the door at the top led into a suite of rooms of almost regal splendour and oriental luxury. The first and the second chambers were vacant; but in the third Ramiro d'Orco was walking up and down with slow steps, and his stern, thoughtful eyes bent upon the ground. It is probable that he had heard the step of Lorenzo from his first entrance; but he was one of those men who never show emotion of any kind, whatever they may feel--men who are never known to start; and it was not till the young man and the friar were quite near that he even looked up.
"Welcome to Rome, Lorenzo," he said, without embracing him as most Italians would have done, or giving him his hand as an Englishman would not have failed to do. "Friar, you may leave us, and do not let us be interrupted. Sit, Lorenzo, sit! Will you rest on that pile of cushions or on that stuffed dais--stuffed with the inner down of some strange northern bird?"