Ragna, as she lay in her chair was thinking of Valentini and expecting him. She was dressed in white piqué and the severe lines of the frock suited her well. Her hair was arranged partly in plaits piled on the top of her head, and partly left loose, flowing over the dull blue cushion behind her head. At her breast she wore a bunch of scented geranium leaves.
Valentini had promised to bring for her inspection a water colour copy of one of Botticelli's paintings he was making for the Arundell Society of London. The continuance of her art studies was the pretext for their intercourse thinly veiling a loverlike intensity on his part that was not without its disquieting side to the girl, and on hers a pathetic dependence on his friendship and company.
She lay waiting, half drowsy with the heat, recollection in abeyance, idly afloat on a hazy sea of thought. Finally she heard the door-bell tinkle and Carolina ushered in the visitor. He had left his hat and stick in the outside passage and entered the salotto carrying in one hand a bunch of gardenias, and in the other his picture wrapped in paper. His footsteps rang on the bare tile floor as he advanced to her side and laid his floral offering on her knees.
"How good of you to come so early," she said.
"Early? I thought the hour would never come! It seems such a long time, to me at least, since I saw you last. I have brought the picture you see,--I put the last touches to it this morning."
He unwrapped the picture as he spoke and gave it into her hands. It was a careful copy of exquisite delicacy of colour and finish and she gazed on it with a kind of wonder.
"How beautiful it is, and how wonderfully done!"
He flushed with pleasure at the note of genuine admiration in her voice.
"It's my business to do it well," he said simply. "I am glad you like it." He drew up a chair and seated himself beside her. "They will pay me well for it," he added, then as he saw the note jarred, "but it is not for the money I do it, though that is not to be despised--and the labourer is worthy of his hire. I love the work; it is the greatest pleasure in the world I think, to do the work one loves and do it well, to see it growing under one's touch. I lose myself quite and the time passes without my knowing it. When you are stronger you must take up your work again and you will feel what a satisfaction it is."