The benevolent-looking clergyman gazed aghast at Herminia. Then he
turned slowly to Alan. "Your wife," he said in a mild and
terrified voice, "is a VERY advanced lady."
Herminia longed to blurt out the whole simple truth. "I am NOT his
wife. I am not, and could never be wife or slave to any man. This
is a very dear friend, and he and I are travelling as friends
together." But a warning glance from Alan made her hold her peace
with difficulty and acquiesce as best she might in the virtual
deception. Still, the incident went to her heart, and made her
more anxious than ever to declare her convictions and her practical
obedience to them openly before the world. She remembered, oh, so
well one of her father's sermons that had vividly impressed her in
the dear old days at Dunwich Cathedral. It was preached upon the
text, "Come ye out and be ye separate."
From Milan they went on direct to Florence. Alan had decided to
take rooms for the summer at Perugia, and there to see Herminia
safely through her maternal troubles. He loved Perugia, he said;
it was cool and high-perched; and then, too, it was such a capital
place for sketching. Besides, he was anxious to complete his
studies of the early Umbrian painters. But they must have just one
week at Florence together before they went up among the hills.
Florence was the place for a beginner to find out what Italian art
was aiming at. You got it there in its full logical development--
every phase, step by step, in organic unity; while elsewhere you
saw but stages and jumps and results, interrupted here and there by
disturbing lacunae. So at Florence they stopped for a week en
route, and Herminia first learnt what Florentine art proposed to
itself.
Ah, that week in Florence! What a dream of delight! 'Twas pure
gold to Herminia. How could it well be otherwise? It seemed to
her afterwards like the last flicker of joy in a doomed life,
before its light went out and left her forever in utter darkness.
To be sure, a week is a terribly cramped and hurried time in which
to view Florence, the beloved city, whose ineffable glories need at
least one whole winter adequately to grasp them. But failing a
winter, a week with the gods made Herminia happy. She carried away
but a confused phantasmagoria, it is true, of the soaring tower of
the Palazzo Vecchio, pointing straight with its slender shaft to
heaven; of the swelling dome and huge ribs of the cathedral, seen
vast from the terrace in front of San Miniato; of the endless
Madonnas and the deathless saints niched in golden tabernacles at
the Uffizi and the Pitti; of the tender grace of Fra Angelico at
San Marco; of the infinite wealth and astounding variety of
Donatello's marble in the spacious courts of the cool Bargello.
But her window at the hotel looked straight as it could look down
the humming Calzaioli to the pierced and encrusted front of
Giotto's campanile, with the cupola of San Lorenzo in the middle
distance, and the facade of Fiesole standing out deep-blue against
the dull red glare of evening in the background. If that were not
enough to sate and enchant Herminia, she would indeed have been
difficult. And with Alan by her side, every joy was doubled.