He would move out at once, and make room for the newcomer’s luggage to be taken up. She apologized for not taking the gentlemen up herself, she had her hands full: she had to get Zustina ready to pay lottery visits with her. All the patrons on the list had to be visited that very day in the course of the morning and afternoon.

Andreas would again have liked to know what was the meaning of all this about the patrons and the lottery, but as his guide, with an energetic and approving nod, seemed to take the matter for granted, he found no convenient opportunity for his question, and they followed two half-grown boys, who were clearly twins, up the steep wooden staircase to Signorina Nina’s room.

At the door the boys halted, and when a faint groan was heard, looked at each other with their nimble squirrel’s eyes and seemed highly pleased. The curtains of the bed were drawn back; on it lay a pale young man. A wooden table by the wall and a chair were covered with dirty brushes and pots of paint, a palette hung on the wall. Opposite to it hung a bright, very pretty mirror, otherwise the place was empty.

“Are you better?” asked the boys.

“Better,” groaned the man in the bed.

“So we can take away the stone?”

“Yes, take it away.”

“When you have the colic you must lay a stone on your stomach, then you get better,” announced one of the boys, while the one nearest to the sick man rolled away a stone which they could hardly have lifted with their full combined strength.

Andreas could hardly bear to see a sick man thus  turned out of bed on his account. He stepped to the window and threw wide the half-open shutter: there was water below, sunny ripples were lapping round the brightly painted steps of a very big building opposite, and on a wall a mesh of light-rings was dancing. He leaned out; there was another house, then another, then the lane opened into a big, broad canal lying full in the sunshine. A balcony projected from the corner house, with an oleander on it, its branches swaying in the wind: on the other side cloths and rugs were hanging from airy windows. Opposite, beyond the great waterway, stood a palace with fine stone figures in niches.

He stepped back into the room; the man in the domino had vanished, the young man was standing superintending the boys, who were busy clearing away paint-pots and bundles of dirty brushes from the only table and chair in the room. He was pale and a little unkempt, but well made; there was nothing ill-favoured in his face save for a wry underlip, drawn to one side, which gave him a crafty look.

“Did you notice”—he turned to Andreas—“that he had nothing on under his domino but his shirt? He’s like that once a month. I suppose you know what that means? He’s a gamester. What else could it mean? You should have seen him yesterday. He had an embroidered coat, a flowered waistcoat, two watches with trinkets, a snuff-box, rings on every finger, fine silver shoe-buckles. The scoundrel!” He laughed, but his laughter was not pleasant. “You’ll have a comfortable room here. If you need anything else, call on me. I can show you a coffee-house close by where you’ll be well served if I introduce you. You can write your letters there and make appointments and settle your business—all but what you generally deal with behind locked doors.”

Here he laughed again, and the two boys found the joke excellent, laughing out loud as they struggled with all their might to drag the heavy stone out of the room, with a look on their faces of their sister downstairs.

“If you have any business that needs an honest man,” went on the artist, “I shall be honoured if you trust me with it. If I am not at hand, see that you get a Friuli man; they’re the only safe messengers. You’ll find some of them on the Rialto and in any of the big squares. You can tell them by their country costume. They are trusty and close, they remember names, and can even recognize a mask by his walk and his shoe-buckles. If you want anything from over there, ask me. I am the scene-painter there and can go about the place as I like.”

Andreas understood that he was referring to the grey building opposite, with the brightly coloured stone steps leading down to the water, which had looked too big for an ordinary house and too mean for a palace.

“I mean the San Samuele theatre. I thought you knew that long ago. As I said, I am the scene-painter, your landlady is one of the attendants, and the old man is a candle-snuffer.”

“Who?”

“Count Prampero, who owns this house. Who else should it be? First the daughter was an actress, she got them all in—not the girl you saw—the elder, Nina. She’s worthwhile. I’ll take you to her this afternoon.