too late--
He bade me rouse him--

ANNICCA.
Haste to seek him, then.
'T is hard on sunset, and he looks for thee
With his first waking motion. Till to-night.
[Exeunt severally.]

SCENE II.

A hall in RIBERA'S house. Enter LUCA and FIAMETTA.

FIAMETTA.
But did you see her?

LUCA.
Nay, I saw her sister, Donna Annicca.

FIAMETTA.
Tush, man! never name her beside my lady Maria-Rosa. You have lost
the richest feast in the world for hungry eyes. Her gown of cloth
o' silver clad her, as it were, with light; there twinkled about
her waist a girdle stiff with stones--you would have said they
breathed. Mine own hands wreathed the dropping pearls in her hair,
and pearls again were clasped around her throat. But no, I might
tell thee every ornament--her jeweled fan, her comb of pearls, her
floating veil of gauze, and still the best of all would escape us.

LUCA.
Thou speakest more like her page than her handmaiden.

FIAMETTA.
Thou knowest not woman truly, for all thy wit. I speak most like a
woman when I weigh the worth of beauty and rich apparel. Heigh-ho!
I have felt the need of this. Thou, good Luca, who might have
been my father, canst understand me? HE was poor as thou. Why
shouldst thou be his lackey, his slave? My hand were as dainty as
hers, if it could but be spared its daily labor.

LUCA.
Yes, poor child, I understand thee, and yet thou art wrong. He is
more slave to pride than I am to him. I know him well, Fiametta,
after so many years of service, and to-day I pity him more than I
fear him. Why, girl, my task is sport beside his toil! If my
limbs be weary, I sleep; but I have seen him sit before his canvas
with straining eyes and the big beads standing on his brow. When
at last he gave o'er, and I have smoothed his pillow, and served
and soothed him, what sleep could he snatch? His brain is haunted
with evil visions, whereof some be merely of his own imaginings,
and others the phantoms of folk who are living or have lived, and
who rouse his jealousy or mayhap his remorse, God only knows! If
that be genius--to be alive to pain at every pore, to be possessed
of a devil that robs you of your sleep and grants no space between
the hours of