‘No, indeed, Mr. Dessart,’ she called out, as he was making arrangements with Mrs. Royston to meet later at the hotel, ‘I don’t want you to come with me; I shouldn’t think of taking you away. My aunt will be at the station, and I am perfectly capable of getting there alone. Really, I don’t want to trouble you.’
He put his foot on the carriage-step.
‘It’s no trouble,’ he smiled.
‘No, no; I would rather go alone. I shall really be angry if you come,’ she insisted in a low tone.
The young man shrugged and removed his foot from the step.
‘As you please,’ he returned in a tone which carried an impression of slightly wounded feelings. The driver looked back expectantly, waiting for his directions. Paul hesitated a moment, and then turned toward her again as if inquiring the way. ‘Is there any hope for me?’ he said.
She looked away without answering.
‘There’s no other man?’ he added quickly.
Marcia for a second looked up in his face. ‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘there’s no other man.’
He straightened up, with a happy laugh. ‘Then I’ll win,’ he whispered, and he shook her hand as if on a compact.
‘Stazione,’ he called to the driver. And as the carriage started, Marcia glanced back and nodded toward the Roystons, with a quick smile for Paul.
CHAPTER VIII
‘Ah, Sybert, you’re just the man I wanted to see!’ Melville came up the walk of the palazzo occupied by the American ambassador as Sybert, emerging from the door, paused on the top step to draw on his gloves.
‘In that case,’ the latter returned, ‘it’s well you didn’t come five minutes later, or I should have been lost to the world for the afternoon. What’s up?’
‘Nothing serious. Can you spare me a few moments’ talk? I won’t take up your time if you are in a hurry.’
‘Not in the least. I’m entirely at your disposal. Nothing on for the afternoon, and I was preparing to loaf.’
The two turned back into the house and crossed the hall to the ambassador’s private library. Melville closed the door and regarded his companion a trifle quizzically. Sybert dropped into a chair, indicated another, and pushed a box of cigars and some matches across the table; then he looked up and caught Melville’s expression.
‘Well, what’s up?’ he asked again.
The consul-general selected a cigar with some deliberation, bit off the end, and regarded it critically, while his smile broadened. ‘I have just returned from the mass meeting of the foreign residents,’ he remarked.
‘That should have been entertaining.’
‘It was,’ he admitted. ‘There was some spirited discussion as to the best way of suppressing the riots.’
‘And how did they decide to do it?’
‘They have appointed a committee.’
‘Of course a committee!’ Sybert laughed. ‘And what is the committee to do? Wait on the ministers and invite them to reconstruct their morals? Ask the King to spend a little less money on the soldiers’ uniforms and a little more on their rations?’
‘The Committee,’ said Melville, ‘is to raise money for food, and to assist the government as far as possible in quieting the people and suppressing the agitators.’
‘Ah!’ breathed Sybert.
‘And,’ he added, with his eye on the young man, ‘I have the honour of informing you that you were made chairman.’
‘Oh, the devil!’
‘This is not an official notification,’ he pursued blandly; ‘but I thought you’d like to hear the news.’
‘Who’s at the bottom of this? Why, in heaven’s name, didn’t you stop them?’
‘I couldn’t very well; I was chairman of the meeting.’
Sybert’s usual easy nonchalance had vanished. He rose to his feet and took one or two turns about the room.
‘I don’t see why I should be shoved into it—I wish some of these officious fools would go back home, where they belong. I won’t serve on any such committee; I’ll be hanged if I will! I’ll resign.’
‘Nonsense, Sybert; you can’t do that. It would be too marked. People would think you had some reason for not wanting to serve. It was very natural that your name should have occurred for the position; you have lived in Rome longer than most of us, and are supposed to understand the conditions and to be interested in good government.’
‘It puts me in a mighty queer position.’
‘I don’t see why.’ The elder man’s tone had grown cool. ‘They naturally took it for granted that you, as well as the rest of us, would want to have the riots suppressed and choke off any latent tendencies toward revolution in this precious populace.’
‘It was the work of a lot of damned busybodies who wanted to see what I would do.’
Melville suppressed a momentary smile. ‘However,’ he remarked, ‘I see no reason why you should be so reluctant about serving in a good cause—I don’t suppose you wish to see a revolution any more than the rest of us.’
‘Heavens, no! It wouldn’t do any good; the government’s got the army to back it; the revolutionists would only be sent to the galleys for their trouble, and the police oppression would be worse than ever.’
He swung up and down the room a couple of times, and then pausing with his hands in his pockets, stared moodily out of the window. Melville smoked and watched him, a shade of uneasiness in his glance. Just what position Laurence Sybert occupied in Rome—what unofficial position, that is—was a mystery to the most of his friends. Melville understood him as well as any one, with the exception of Howard Copley; but even he was at times quite unprepared for the intimate knowledge Sybert displayed in affairs which, on the surface, did not concern him. Sybert was distinctly not a babbler, and this tendency toward being close-mouthed had given rise to a vast amount of speculative interest in his movements. He carried the reputation, among the foreign residents, of knowing more about Italian politics than the premier himself; and he further carried the reputation—whether deserved or not—of mixing rather more deeply than was wise in the dark undercurrent of the government.
And this particular spring the undercurrent was unusually dark and dangerously swift. Young Italy had been sowing wild oats, and the crop was ripening fast. It was a period of anxiety and disappointment for those who had watched the country’s brave struggle for unity and independence thirty years before. Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, and Garibaldi had passed away; the patriots had retired and the politicians had come in. A long period of over-speculation, of dishonesty and incompetence, of wild building schemes and crushing taxes, had brought the country’s credit to the lowest possible ebb. A series of disgraceful bank scandals, involving men highest in the government, had shaken the confidence of the people. The failure of the Italian colony in Africa, and the heart-rending campaign against King Menelik and his dervishes, with thousands of wounded conscripts sent back to their homes, had carried the discontent to every corner of the kingdom. And fast on the heels of this disaster had come a failure in the wheat crop, with all its attendant horrors; while simultaneously the corner in the American market was forcing up the price of foreign wheat to twice its normal value.
It was a time when priests were recalling to the peasants the wrongs the church had suffered; a time when the socialist presses were turning out pamphlets containing plain truths plainly stated; a time when investors refused to invest in government bonds, and even Italian statesmen were beginning to look grave.
To the casual eyes of tourists the country was still as picturesquely, raggedly gay as ever. There were perhaps more beggars on the church steps, and their appeal for bread was a trifle more insistent; but for people interested only in Italy’s galleries and ruins and shops the changes were not marked. But those who did understand, who cared for the future of the nation, who saw the seething below the surface, were passing through a phase of disillusionment and doubt. And Laurence Sybert was one who both understood and cared. He saw the direction in which the country was drifting even better perhaps than the Italians themselves. He looked on in a detached, more remote fashion, not so swept by the current as those who were in the stream. But if he were detached in fact—by accident of his American parentage and citizenship—in feelings he was with the Italians heart and soul.