“Is that a good likeness?” Ferrari asked, suddenly.
I started, and recollecting myself, answered: “Excellent! So true a resemblance that it arouses a long train of memories in my mind—memories both bitter and sweet. Ah! what a proud fellow he was!”
“Fabio was also very proud,” chimed in my wife’s sweet voice. “Very cold and haughty.”
Little liar! How dared she utter this libel on my memory! Haughty, I might have been to others, but never to her—and coldness was no part of my nature. Would that it were! Would that I had been a pillar of ice, incapable of thawing in the sunlight of her witching smile! Had she forgotten what a slave I was to her? what a poor, adoring, passionate fool I became under the influence of her hypocritical caresses! I thought this to myself, but I answered aloud:
“Indeed! I am surprised to hear that. The Romani hauteur had ever to my mind something genial and yielding about it—I know my friend was always most gentle to his dependents.”
The butler here coughed apologetically behind his hand—an old trick of his, and one which signified his intense desire to speak.
Ferrari laughed, as he held out his glass for more wine.
“Here is old Giacomo,” he said, nodding to him lightly. “He remembers both the Romanis—ask him _his_ opinion of Fabio—he worshiped his master.”
I turned to my servant, and with a benignant air addressed him:
“Your face is not familiar to me, my friend,” I said. “Perhaps you were not here when I visited the elder Count Romani?”
“No, _eccellenza_,” replied Giacomo, rubbing his withered hands nervously together, and speaking with a sort of suppressed eagerness, “I came into my lord’s service only a year before the countess died—I mean the mother of the young count.”
“Ah! then I missed making your acquaintance,” I said, kindly, pitying the poor old fellow, as I noticed how his lips trembled, and how altogether broken he looked. “You knew the last count from childhood, then?”
“I did, _eccellenza_!” And his bleared eyes roved over me with a sort of alarmed inquiry.
“You loved him well?” I said, composedly, observing him with embarrassment.
“_Eccellenza_, I never wish to serve a better master. He was goodness itself—a fine, handsome, generous lad—the saints have his soul in their keeping! Though sometimes I cannot believe he is dead—my old heart almost broke when I heard it. I have never been the same since—my lady will tell you so—she is often displeased with me.”