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"So you never read Father Cristoforo's letter?" he said. "And you sent me no message of reply?" "Certainly not. How could I, when I did not know that you were in England?" Dino held out his hands. "I misjudged you," he said, simply, "Will you forgive me and take my hand again?" Brian clasped his hand. "You know there's nothing to forgive," he said, with a smile.
Then it occurred to him that Father Cristoforo's long letter might have contained information concerning Dino's visit to London: possibly he had been asked to do the young Italian some service, which, of course, he had been unable to render as he had not read the letter.
In spite of the displeasure implied in Padre Cristoforo's message, his heart was swelling with delight at the sight of the well-known Italian hills, at the sunshine and the sweet scents that came to him with the crystal clearness of the Italian atmosphere.
Your name is Bernardino Vasari, and you are to be brought up in the monastery of San Stefano by wise and pious men. Is that not happiness enough for you?" "Oh, yes, yes, indeed; I wish for nothing else," said Dino, throwing himself at Padre Cristoforo's feet, and pressing his lips to the monk's black gown, while the tears poured down his smooth, olive cheeks.
Father Cristoforo's letter had been delivered by that morning's post, and it was during a stroll, in which, to tell the truth, Brian was more absorbed by the thought of Elizabeth than by any remembrance of his own position or of the Prior's views, that he dropped the letter of which the contents had so important a bearing on his future life.
Long before, Genoa had taken an active part in the Crusades, and every Genoese child knew its story. It had carried on victorious wars with other Italian seaports. It had an enormous commerce. Although Cristoforo's family were humble people of little or no education, the lad must have had, or made, many opportunities for acquiring knowledge.
While the two stood together in Cristoforo's wagon, and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against his rival's leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily means, and by virtue of his black-art acquirements.
He was perfectly ignorant of the fact of which Father Cristoforo's letter would have informed him, that this possible Italian claimant was no other than his friend, Dino Vasari. Of course, he could not be long at Strathleckie without finding out the truth about Elizabeth. If he had lived much with the Herons, he would have found it out in the course of the first twenty-four hours.
The son of a Pisan sculptor who had settled in Rome, Cristoforo's genius had attracted attention when he was quite a boy, and he had been sent to Milan by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. The young Roman master was one of those brilliant and versatile artists who especially commended themselves to Lodovico.
Hugo bestowed a few choice Sicilian epithets of a maledictory character upon Dino Vasari and Brian Luttrell both; then he returned to the table and studied the latter pages of Father Cristoforo's letter. "Meet him in London. I should like to meet Dino Vasari, too. I wonder whether Brian had read this letter when he dropped it. These instructions come at the very end.
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