These were charming hours. The galleries had
been so cold all winter that Rowland had been an exile from them; but
now that the sun was already scorching in the great square between the
colonnades, where the twin fountains flashed almost fiercely, the marble
coolness of the long, image-bordered vistas made them a delightful
refuge. The great herd of tourists had almost departed, and our two
friends often found themselves, for half an hour at a time, in sole and
tranquil possession of the beautiful Braccio Nuovo. Here and there was
an open window, where they lingered and leaned, looking out into the
warm, dead air, over the towers of the city, at the soft-hued, historic
hills, at the stately shabby gardens of the palace, or at some sunny,
empty, grass-grown court, lost in the heart of the labyrinthine pile.
They went sometimes into the chambers painted by Raphael, and of course
paid their respects to the Sistine Chapel; but Mary's evident preference
was to linger among the statues. Once, when they were standing before
that noblest of sculptured portraits, the so-called Demosthenes, in the
Braccio Nuovo, she made the only spontaneous allusion to her projected
marriage, direct or indirect, that had yet fallen from her lips.
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