a standstill the _fantino_ slipped off its back and was
instantly surrounded by men and boys of his _contrada_, dancing and
shouting with joy, kissing him on both cheeks, pulling him this way
and that, until the _carabinieri_ came up and took him away amongst
them.

"The _Bruco_ hoped to win," the priest said, "and the _Oca's fantino_
might get a knife in his back if he were not taken care of."

Already the crowd was dispersing. The victorious _contrada_ had been
given the painted standard of the Palio, and were bearing it in
triumph to the parish church, where it would remain until the next
_Ferragosto_. The others were going their separate ways, pages and
_alfieri_ in silk doublets and parti-coloured hosen arm-in-arm with
their friends in black broadcloth, standard-bearers smoking
cigarettes, knights unhelmed and wiping heated brows with red cotton
handkerchiefs.

"I will go down the Via Ricasoli with you," Olive said.

"It is I who should take you home."

"Oh, I do not mind the crowd, and I know you are anxious to get back
to Astorre."

"Astorre--yes. Olive, you don't think he looks more delicate, do you?"

The girl felt that she could not have answered truly if her life had
depended on her veracity.

"Oh, no," she said. "He is rather tired, I think. The heat tries him.
He will be better later on."

The poor mother seemed relieved.

"You are right; he is always pale in the summer," she said, trying to
persuade herself that it was so. "You will come to-morrow to tell him
about the Palio?"

"Yes, surely."

There were to be fireworks later on at the Fortezza and illuminations
of the Lizza gardens, so the human tide set that way and left the
outlying parts of the city altogether. The quiet, tree-shadowed
piazzetta before the church of Santa Maria dei Servi was quite
deserted. Children played there in the mornings, and old men and women
lingered there and sat on the wooden benches in the sun, but they were
all away now; the bells had rung for the Ave Maria, the church doors
were closed, and the sacristan had gone to his supper.

A little mist had crept up from the valley; steep red roofs and old
walls that had glowed in the sun's last rays were shadowed as the
light waned, and black clouds came up from the horizon and blotted out
the stars.

"Go home quickly now, Olive. There will be a storm. The poor mad
people will howl to-night in the Manicomio. I hear them sometimes when
I am lying awake. Good-nigh