She turned her head as she went on.
"For heaven's sake send a doctor!" she cried to the Baroness, and in a
moment she was gone, with the weak young man close at her side.
The Baroness nodded quickly, and when all three reached the door she
left the two to go upstairs and ran down, with a tremendous puffing of
the invisible silk bellows.
"The Prince's little girl is very ill," she said, as she passed the
porter, who was now polishing the panes of glass in the door of his
lodge, because he had done the same thing every morning for twenty
years.
He almost dropped the dingy leather he was using, but before he could
answer, the cab passed out, bearing the Baroness on her errand.
CHAPTER II
Signor Pompeo Sassi sat in his dingy office and tore his hair, in the
good old literal Italian sense. His elbows rested on the shabby black
oilcloth glued to the table, and his long knotted fingers twisted his
few remaining locks, on each side of his head, in a way that was
painful to see. From time to time he desisted for an instant, and held
up his open hands, the fingers quivering with emotion, and his watery
eyes were turned upwards, too, as if directing an unspoken prayer to
the dusty rafters of the ceiling. The furrows had deepened of late in
his respectable, trust-inspiring face, and he was as thin as a
skeleton in leather.
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