triumphed? I had done only what I was told. Yet I was part of the
expedition; I could not but share the grief. If I did not wet my pillow
with my tears, it was because I could not keep awake long enough.
Whatever my sorrows, speedily they slipped from me.

* * * * *

I roused with a start from deep, dreamless sleep, and then wondered
whether, after all, I had waked. Here, to be sure, was Marcel's bed, on
which I had lain down; there was the high gable-window, through which
the westering sun now poured. There was the wardrobe open, with Marcel's
Sunday suit hanging on the peg; here were the two stools, the little
image of the Virgin on the wall. But here was also something else, so
out of place in the chamber of a page that I pinched myself to make sure
it was real. At my elbow on the pallet lay a box of some fine foreign
wood, beautifully grained by God and polished by grateful man. It was
about as large as my lord's despatch-box, bound at the edges with
shining brass and having long brass hinges wrought in a design of leaves
and flowers. Beside the box were set three shallow trays, lined with
blue velvet, and filled full of goldsmith's work-glittering chains,
linked or twisted, bracelets in the form of yellow snakes with green
eyes, buckles with ivory teeth, glove-clasps thick with pearls,
ear-rings and finger-rings with precious stones.

I stared bedazzled from the display to him who stood as showman. This
was a handsome lad, seemingly no older than I, though taller, with a
shock of black hair, rough and curly, and dark, smooth face, very boyish
and pleasant. He was dressed well, in bourgeois fashion; yet there was
about him and his apparel something, I could not tell what, unfamiliar,
different from us others.

He, meeting my eye, smiled in the friendliest way, like a child, and
said, in Italian:

"Good day to you, my little gentleman."

I had still the uncertain feeling that I must be in a dream, for why
should an Italian jeweller be displaying his treasures to me, a
penniless page? But the dream was amusing; I was in no haste to wake.

I knew my Italian well enough, for Monsieur's confessor, the Father
Francesco, who had followed him into exile, was Florentine; and as he
always spoke his own tongue to Monsieur, and I was always at the duke's
heels, I picked up a deal of it. After Monsieur's going, the father,
already a victim, poor man, to the falling-sickness, of which he died