“H’m. He would have done nothing but groan and complain about anything and everything. No, he wouldn’t have taken it laughing. Very poor physique. Very. Frightful hypochondriac. … I am a doctor, you know.”
Cantelucci was going to attend himself on his two guests. He presented to the doctor a smoking soup tureen enveloped in a napkin. The doctor assumed at once a businesslike air, and at his invitation Cosmo held out his plate. The doctor helped him carefully.
“Don’t forget the wine, my wine, Anzelmo,” he said to Cantelucci, who answered by a profound bow. “I saved his life once,” he continued after the innkeeper had gone away.
The tone was particularly significant. Cosmo, partly repelled and partly amused by the man, enquired whether the worthy host had been very ill. The doctor swallowed the last spoonful of soup.
“Ill,” he said. “He had a gash that long in his side and a set of forty-pound fetters in his legs. I cured both complaints. Not without some risk to myself, as you may imagine. There was an epidemic of hanging and shooting in the South of Italy then.”
He noticed Cosmo’s steady stare and raised the corners of his mouth with an effect of geniality on his broad rosy face.
“In ’99, you know. I wonder I didn’t die of it too. I was considerably younger then and my humane instincts, early enthusiasms, and so on had led me into pretty bad company. However, I had also pretty good friends. What with one thing and another I am pretty well known all over Italy. My name is Martel—Doctor Martel. You probably may have heard. …”
He threw a searching glance at Cosmo, who bowed noncommittally, and went on without a pause: “I am the man who brought vaccine to Italy, first. Cantelucci was trying to tell me your name but really I couldn’t make it out.”
“Latham is my name,” said Cosmo, “and I only set foot in Italy for the first time in my life two days ago.”
The doctor jerked his head sideways.
“Latham, eh? Yorkshire?”
“Yes,” said Cosmo, smiling.
“To be sure. Sir Charles …”
“That’s my father.”
“Yes, yes. Served in the Guards. I used to know the doctor of his regiment. Married in Italy. I don’t remember the lady’s name. Oh, those are old times. Might have been a hundred years ago.”
“You mean that so much history has been made since.”
“Yes, no end of history,” assented the doctor, but checked himself. “And yet, tell me, what does it all amount to?”
Cosmo made no answer. Cantelucci having brought the wine while they talked, the doctor-filled two glasses, waited a moment as if to hear Cosmo speak, but as the young man remained silent he said:
“Well, let us drink then to Peace.”
He tossed the wine down his throat while Cosmo drank his much more leisurely. As they set down their empty glasses they were startled by a roar of a tremendous voice filling the vaulted room from end to end in order to “let Their Honours know that the boat was at the steps.” The doctor made a faint grimace.
“Do you hear the voice of the British lion, Mr. Latham?” he asked peevishly. “Ah, well, we will have some little peace now here.”
Those officers at the naval table who had to go on board rose in a body and left the room hastily. Three or four who had a longer leave drew close together and began to talk low with their heads in a bunch. Cosmo glancing down the room seemed to recognize at the door the form of the seaman whom he had met earlier in the evening. He followed the officers out. The other diners, the sombre ones, and a good many of them with powdered heads, were also leaving the room. Cantelucci put another dish on the table, stepped back a pace with a bow, and stood still. A moment of profound silence succeeded the noise.
“First rate,” said Doctor Martel to Cosmo, after tasting the dish, and then gave a nod to Cantelucci, who made another bow and retreated backwards, always with a solemn expression on his face.
“Italian cooking, of course, but then I am an old Italian myself. Not that I love them, but I have acquired many of their tastes. Before we have done dining you will have tasted the perfection of their cookery, north and south, but I assure you are sharing my dinner. You don’t suppose that the dishes that come to this table are the same the common customers get.”
Cosmo made a slight bow. “I am very sensible of the privilege,” he said.
“The honour and the pleasure are mine, I assure you,” the doctor said in a half-careless tone and looking with distaste towards the small knot of officers with a twenty-four hours’ leave who had finished their confabulation and had risen in a body like men who had agreed on some pleasant course of action. Only the elderly lieutenant lagging a little behind cast a glance at his two countrymen at the little table and followed his comrades with less eager movements.
“A quarter of a tough bullock or half a roast sheep are more in their way, and Cantelucci knows it. As to that company that was sitting at the other table, well, I daresay you can tell yourself what they were, small officials or tradesmen of some sort. I should think that emptying all their pockets—and they were how many, say twenty—you couldn’t collect the value of one English pound at any given time. And Cantelucci knows that too. Well, of course. Still he does well here, but it’s a poor place. I wonder, Mr. Latham, what are you doing here?”
“Well,” said Cosmo with a good-humoured smile, “I am just staying here. Just as you yourself are staying here.”
“Ah, but you never saved Cantelucci’s life, whereas I did and that’s the reason why I am staying here: out of mere kindness and to give him an opportunity to show
