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Updated: June 11, 2025
Reanda was therefore under an obligation to the journalist, and Gloria herself was grateful. Moreover, Englishmen who came to Rome had frequently been to see Reanda's work in consequence of the articles. One old gentleman had tried to induce the artist to paint a picture for him, but had met with a refusal, on the ground that the work at the Palazzetto Borgia would occupy at least another year.
There were, indeed, one or two houses where he was received, as he was at Casa Braccio, in a manner which, for the very reason that it was familiar, proved his social inferiority where he addressed the head of the house as 'Excellency' and was called 'Reanda' by everybody, elders and juniors alike, where he was appreciated as an artist, respected as a man, and welcomed occasionally as a guest when no other outsider was present, but where he was not looked upon as a personage to be invited even with the great throng on state occasions.
She knocked gently upon it with her knuckles, and then smiled as she saw Gloria looking at her. "We keep it locked," she said. "The masons come in the morning to lay on the stucco. One never trusts those people. Signor Reanda keeps the key of this door." The artist opened from within, and stood aside to let the party pass. He started perceptibly when he first saw Gloria.
"That young man loves you, my dear," said Reanda, one day in the following spring, with a smile which showed how little anxiety he felt. Gloria laughed gaily, and patted her husband's hand. "What men like that call love!" she answered. "Besides a journalist! And hideous as he is!" "He certainly has not a handsome face," laughed Reanda. "I am not jealous," he added, with sudden gravity.
He could sleep on the sofa in his dressing-room, as he actually did, in the illness of his anger, treated as Italians know how to treat such common cases, of which the consequences are sometimes fatal. Many an Italian has died from a fit of rage. A single blood-vessel, in the brain, a little weaker than the rest, and all is over in an apoplexy. But Reanda was not of an apoplectic constitution.
"Beauty, beauty!" exclaimed Reanda, impatiently. "Of course, it is beauty! Food for the brush, that says nothing to the heart. The devil can also take the shape of a beautiful woman. That is it. There is something in that young lady's face how shall I say? It pleases me little! You must forgive me, princess. My nerves are shaken. Divine goodness!
"It is as I tell you," said Reanda, nodding his head slowly. Francesca made up her mind, but the scarlet blood rose in her face. "It is better to be honest and frank," she said. "Is Gloria jealous of me?" She was so much ashamed that she could hardly look at him just then. "Jealous! She would kill you!" he cried, and there was anger in his voice at the thought. "Do not go to her.
Reanda noticed that everything he saw there evidently belonged to the hired lodging, from the old-fashioned Italian silver forks, battered and crooked at the prongs, to the heavy cut-glass decanters, stained with age and use, at the neck, and between the diamond-shaped cuttings. There was supper enough for half-a-dozen people, however, and an extraordinary quantity of wine.
She looked at Reanda, and her lip curled with scorn of herself for having loved such a thing. It was long since she had seen the gentle light in his face which had won her heart two years ago. She was familiar with his genius, and it no longer surprised her into overlooking his frailty. His fame no longer flattered her.
"'Un altro po' di fravole, e dammi crema ancor," she sang softly, in the Roman dialect. Then she laughed again, and Reanda smiled at the absurd words "A few more strawberries, and give me some more cream." But even the few notes, a lazy parody of the prima donna's singing of the phrase, charmed his simple love of melody. "Don't look so grim, papa," she said in English.
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