As to the broken tooth, it was a first tooth and shaky at that. Most people would have contented themselves with the reflection that the matter would right itself in the course of nature. But Mrs. Copley, who perhaps had a tendency to be over-solicitous on a question involving her son’s health or beauty, decided that Gerald must go to the dentist’s. Gerald demurred, and Marcia, who had previously had no thought of going into Rome that afternoon, offered to accompany the party, for the sake—she said—of keeping up his courage in the train. As they were preparing to start, she informed Mrs. Copley that she thought she would stay with the Roystons all night, since they had planned to visit the Forum by moonlight some evening, and this appeared a convenient time. In the Roman station she abandoned Gerald to his fate, and drove to the Hôtel de Londres et Paris.
She found the ladies just sitting down to their midday breakfast and delighted to see her. It developed, however, that they had an unbreakable engagement for the evening, and the plan of visiting the Forum was accordingly out of the question.
‘No matter,’ said Marcia, drawing off her gloves; ‘I can come in some other day; it’s always moonlight in Rome’; and they settled themselves to discussing plans for the afternoon. The hotel porter had given Margaret a permesso for the royal palace and stables, and being interested in the domestic arrangements of kings, she was insistent that they visit the Quirinal. But Mrs. Royston, who was conscientiously bent on first exhausting the heavier attractions set forth in Baedeker, declared for the Lateran museum. The matter was still unsettled when they rose from the table and were presented with the cards of Paul Dessart and M. Adolphe Benoit.
Paul’s voice settled the question: the city was too full of pilgrims for any pleasure to be had within the walls; why not take advantage of the pleasant weather to drive out to the monastery of Tre Fontane? But the matter did not eventually arrange itself as happily as he had hoped, since he found himself in one carriage and Marcia in the other. At the monastery the monks were saying office in the main chapel when they arrived, and they paused a few minutes to listen to the deep rise and fall of the Gregorian chant as it echoed through the long, bare nave. The dim interior, the low, monotonous music, the unseen monks, made an effective whole. Paul, awake to the possibilities of the occasion, did his best to draw Marcia into conversation, but she was tantalizingly unresponsive. The guide-book in Mrs. Royston’s hands and the history of the order appeared to absorb her whole attention.
Fortune, however, was finally on his side. Mrs. Royston elected to stop, on their way back to the city, at St. Paul’s without the Walls, and the whole party once more alighted. Within the basilica, Mrs. Royston, guide-book in hand, commenced her usual conscientious inspection, while Eleanor and the young Frenchman strolled about, commenting on the architecture. Margaret had heard that one of the mosaic popes in the frieze had diamond eyes, and she was insistently bent on finding him. Marcia and Paul followed her a few minutes, but they had both seen the church many times before, and both were at present but mildly interested in diamond-eyed popes.
The door of the cloisters stood ajar, and they presently left the others and strolled into the peaceful enclosure with its brick-flagged floor and quaintly twisted columns. It was tranquil and empty, with no suggestion of the outside world. They turned and strolled down the length of the flagging, where the shadow of the columns alternated with gleaming bars of sunshine. The sleepy, old-world atmosphere cast its spell about them; Marcia’s tantalizing humour and Paul’s impatience fell away. They walked on in silence, until presently the silence made itself awkward and Marcia began to talk about the carving of the columns, the flowers in the garden, the monks who tended them. Paul responded half abstractedly, and he finally broke out with what he was thinking of: a talk they had had that afternoon several weeks before in the Borghese gardens.
‘Most men wouldn’t care for this,’ he nodded toward the prim little garden with its violets and roses framed in by the pillared cloister and higher up by the dull grey walls of the church and monastery. ‘But a few do. Since that is the case, why not let the majority mine their coal and build their railroads, and the very small minority who do care stay and appreciate it? It is fortunate that we don’t all like the same things, for there’s a great variety of work to be done. Of course,’ he added, ‘I know well enough I’m never going to do anything very great; I don’t set up for a genius. But to do a few little things well—isn’t that something?’
They had reached the opposite end of the cloisters, and paused by one of the pillars, leaning against the balustrade.
‘You think it’s shirking one’s duty not to live in America?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Marcia smiled vaguely. ‘I think—perhaps I’m changing my mind.’
‘I only know of one thing,’ he said in a low tone, ‘that would make me want to be exiled from Italy.’
Marcia had a quick foreboding that she knew what he was going to say, and for a moment she hesitated; then her eyes asked: ‘What is that?’
Paul looked down at the sun-barred pavement in silence, and then he looked up in her face and smiled steadily. ‘If you lived out of Italy.’
Marcia received this in silence, while she dropped her eyes to the effigy of a dead monk set in the pavement and commenced mechanically following the Latin inscription. There was still time; she was still mistress of the situation. By a laugh, an adroit turn, she could overlook his words; could bring their relations back again to their normal footing. But she was by no means sure that she wished to bring them back to their normal footing; she felt a sudden, quite strong curiosity to know what he would say next.
‘Hang it! Marcia,’ he exclaimed. ‘I suppose you want to marry a prince, or something like that?’
‘A prince?’ she inquired. ‘Why a prince?’
‘Oh, it’s what you women are always after—having a coronet on your carriage door, with all the servants bowing and saying, “Si, si, eccelenza,” every time you turn around.’
‘It would be fun,’ she agreed. ‘Do you happen to know of any desirable unmarried princes?’
‘There aren’t any.’
‘No? Why, I met one the other day that I thought quite charming. His family is seven hundred years old, and he owns two castles and three villages.’
‘He wouldn’t stay charming. You’d find the castles damp, and the villages dirty, and the prince stupid.’ He dropped his hand over hers where it rested on the balustrade. ‘You’d better take me, Marcia; in the long run you’ll find me nicer.’
Marcia shook her head, but she did not draw away her hand. ‘Really, Paul, I don’t know—and there’s nothing I hate so much in the world as making up my mind. You shouldn’t ask such unanswerable things.’
‘Look, mamma! aren’t the cloisters lovely?’ Margaret’s voice suddenly sounded across the little court. ‘Oh, there are Marcia and Paul over there! We wondered where you had disappeared to.’
‘Oh, the deuce!’ Paul exclaimed as he put his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the pillar. ‘I told you,’ he added, with a laugh, ‘that my family always arrived when they were not wanted!’
They all strolled about together, and Marcia scarcely glanced at him again. But her consciousness was filled with his words, and it required all her self-possession to keep up her part of the conversation. As they started on, Mrs. Royston suggested that they stop a second time at the English cemetery just within the gate. Marcia, looking at her watch, saw with a feeling of relief that she would have to go straight on if she were to catch Mrs. Copley and Gerald in time for the six o’clock train. Bidding them good-bye at the Porta San Paolo, she hastily and emphatically refused Paul’s proposition to drive to the station with her.