"
"All down the front, signorina? Dio buono! You must give me time!"
Assunta cried.
"Yes, we'll go!" And she left her place. She walked slowly to the door
of the church, looking at the pavement, and Rowland could not guess
whether she was thinking of her apron of moss-rosebuds or of her
opportunity for moral sublimity. Before reaching the door she turned
away and stood gazing at an old picture, indistinguishable with
blackness, over an altar. At last they passed out into the court.
Glancing at her in the open air, Rowland was startled; he imagined he
saw the traces of hastily suppressed tears. They had lost time, she
said, and they must hurry; she sent Assunta to look for a fiacre. She
remained silent a while, scratching the ground with the point of her
parasol, and then at last, looking up, she thanked Rowland for his
confidence in her "reasonableness." "It 's really very comfortable to be
asked, to be expected, to do something good, after all the horrid things
one has been used to doing--instructed, commanded, forced to do! I 'll
think over what you have said to me." In that deserted quarter fiacres
are rare, and there was some delay in Assunta's procuring one.
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