But Faustina laughs softly and winds her arm about his neck as they look
together at the last great picture. Anastase has not grown fat. The gods
love him and have promised him eternal youth. He can still buckle round
his slim waist the military belt of twenty years ago, and there is
scarcely one white thread in his black hair.
San Giacinto, the other Saracinesca, who married Faustina's elder sister
Flavia, is in process of making a great fortune, greater perhaps than
the one so nearly thrust upon him by old Montevarchi's compact with
Meschini the librarian and forger. He had scarcely troubled himself to
conceal his opinions before the change of government, being by nature a
calm, fearless man, and under the new order he unhesitatingly sided with
the Italians, to the great satisfaction of Flavia, who foresaw years of
dulness for the mourning party of the Blacks. He had already brought to
Rome the two boys who remained to him from his first marriage with
Serafina Baldi--the little girl who had been born between the other two
children had died in infancy--and the lads had been educated at a
military college, and in 1887 are both officers in the Italian cavalry,
sturdy and somewhat thick-skulled patriots, but gentlemen nevertheless
in spite of the peasant blood.
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