used
these statues to be set up beside the fountain. Another story (to me
it sounds like a child's tale) says that at first there was no
fountain, and that the princess knew nothing of the hatred between
these old men; but the sculptor knew. Having left the order with
him, she married a husband of her own age and lived for years at a
foreign court. At length she returned to Florence and led her
husband one day out through the garden to show him the statues, when
for the first time she saw what the sculptor had done and knew for
the first time that these dead men had hated one another for her
sake; whereupon she let fall one tear which became the source of the
fountain. To me all this part of the story is foolishness: but that
I and Stephanu hate one another not otherwise than those two old
kings, and for no very different cause, is God's truth, cavalier."

"You are devoted to her, you two?" I asked, tempting him to continue.

He gazed down on me for a moment with immeasurable contempt.

"I give you a figure, and you would put it into words! Words!"
He spat. "And yet it is the truth, Englishman, that once she called
me her second father. 'Her second father'--I have repeated that to
Stephanu once or twice when I have lost my temper (a rare thing with
me). You should see him turn blue!"

I could get no more out of Marc'antonio that day, nor indeed did the
pain I suffered allow me to continue the catechism. A little before
night fell he lifted me again and carried me to a bed of
clean-smelling heather and fern he had prepared within the hut; and,
all the night through, the slightest moan from me found him alert to
give me drink or shift me to an easier posture. Our total solitude
seemed from the first to breed a certain good-fellowship between us:
neither next day nor for many days did he remit or falter in his care
for me. But his manner, though not ungentle, was taciturn.
He seemed to carry about a weight on his mind; his brow wore a
constant frown, vexed and unhappy. Once or twice I caught him
talking to himself.

"To be sure it was enough to madden all the saints: and the Prince is
not one of them. . . ."

"What was enough to madden all the saints, O Marc'antonio?" I asked
from my bed.

Already he had turned in some confusion, surprised by the sound of
his own voice. He was down on hands and knees, and had been blowing
upon the embers of a wood fire, kindled under a pan of goat's milk.
The goat he