‘It doesn’t matter. My time’s coming; you can’t put it off.’ His hand touched hers hanging at her side and he clasped it firmly. ‘Come here; we’ll get out of this crowd,’ and he pushed on outside and drew back into a corner by one of the tall columns. The crowd surged past, flowing down the steps like a river widening to the sea. Below them the piazza was black with a tossing, moving mass of carriages and people. The mass of the Vatican at their left loomed a black bulk in the night, its hundreds of windows shining in the reflected lights of the piazza like the eyes of a great octopus. At another time Marcia might have looked very curiously toward the palace. She might have wondered if in one of those dark windows Leo was not standing brooding over the throng of worshippers who had come that day. How must a pope feel to see thirty thousand people go out from under his roof—go out freely to their homes—while he alone may not step across the threshold? At another time she would have paused to play a little with the thought, but now her attention was engaged. Paul still held her hand.
He squared himself in front of her, with his back to the crowd. ‘Have you been thinking about what I asked you?’
Had she been thinking! She had been doing nothing else. She looked at him reproachfully. ‘Let’s not talk about it. The more I think, the more I don’t know.’
‘That’s an unfortunate state to be in. Perhaps I can help you to make up your mind. Are you going to be in love with me some day, Marcia—soon?’ he persisted.
‘I—I don’t know.’
He leaned toward her, with his face very close to hers. She shrank back further into the shadow. ‘There they are!’ she exclaimed, as she caught sight of Eleanor’s head above the crowd, and she tried to draw her hand away.
‘Never mind them. They won’t be here for three minutes. You’ve got time enough to answer me.’
‘Please, not now—Paul,’ she whispered.
‘When?’ he insisted, keeping a firm hold of her hand. ‘The next time I see you?’
‘Yes—perhaps,’ and she turned away to greet the others.
CHAPTER XII
The week following Easter proved rainy and disagreeable. It was not a cheerful period, for the villa turned out to be a fair-weather house. The stone walls seemed to absorb and retain the moisture like a vault, and a mortuary atmosphere hung about the rooms. Mr. Copley, with masculine imperviousness to mud and water, succeeded in escaping from the dampness of his home by journeying daily to the ever-luring Embassy. But his wife and niece, more solicitous on the subject of hair and clothes, remained storm-bound, and on the fourth day Mrs. Copley’s conversation turned frequently to malaria.
Marcia, who had taken the villa for better, for worse, steadfastly endeavoured to approve of it in even this uncheerful mood. She divided her time between romping through the big rooms with Gerald, Gervasio, and Marcellus, and shivering over a brazier full of coals in her own room, to the accompaniment of dripping ilex trees and the superfluous splashing of the fountain. Her book was the Egoist, and the Egoist is an illuminating work to a young woman in Marcia’s frame of mind. It makes her hesitate. She knew that Paul Dessart in no wise resembled the magnificent Sir Willoughby, and that it was unfair to make the comparison, but still she made it.
As she stood by the window, gazing down on the rain-swept Campagna, she pondered the situation and pondered it again, and succeeded only in working herself into a state of deeper indecision. Paul was interesting, attractive—as her uncle said, ‘decorative’; but was he any more, or was that enough? Should she be sorry if she said ‘no’? Should she be sorrier if she said ‘yes’? So her mind busied itself to the dripping of the raindrops; and for all the thought she spent upon the question, she wandered in a circle and finished where she had started.
The Monday following Easter week dawned clear and bright again. Marcia opened her eyes to a bar of sunlight streaming in at the eastern window, and the first sound that greeted her was a joyful chorus of bird-voices. She sat up and viewed the weather with a sense of re-awakened life, feeling as if her perplexities had somehow vanished with the rain. She was no nearer making up her mind than she had been the day before, but she was quite contented to let it stay unmade a little longer. The sound of horses’ hoofs beneath her window told her that her uncle had started for the station. When he was away and there were no guests in the house, Marcia and Mrs. Copley usually had the first breakfast served in their rooms. Accordingly, as she heard her uncle gallop off, she made a leisurely toilet, and then ate her coffee and rolls and marmalade at a little table set on the balcony. It was late when she joined her aunt on the loggia.
Mrs. Copley looked up from an intricate piece of embroidery. ‘Good morning, Marcia,’ she said, returning her niece’s greeting. ‘Yes, isn’t it a relief to see some sunshine again!—I have a surprise for you,’ she added.
‘A surprise?’ asked Marcia. ‘My birthday isn’t coming for two weeks. But never mind; surprises are always welcome. What is it?’
‘It isn’t a very big surprise; just a tiny one to break the monotony of these four days of rain. I had a note from Mrs. Royston this morning. It should have come yesterday, only it was so wet that Angelo didn’t go for the mail.’ She paused to rummage through the basket of silks. ‘I thought it was here, but no matter. She says that owing to these dreadful riots they have changed all their plans. They have entirely given up Naples, and are going north instead, on a little trip of a week or so to Assisi and Perugia. She wrote to say good-bye and to tell me that they would get back to Rome in time for your party; though they are afraid they can’t spend more than two or three days with us then, as the change of plan involves some hurry. They leave on Wednesday.’
‘That is too bad,’ said Marcia, and with the words she uttered a sigh of relief. Paul would go with them, probably; or, at any rate, she need not see him; it would postpone the difficulty. ‘But where is the surprise?’ she inquired.
‘Oh, the surprise!’ Mrs. Copley laughed. ‘I entirely forgot it. I was afraid they might think it strange that I hadn’t answered the note—though I really didn’t get it in time—so I asked your uncle to stop at their hotel and invite them all to come out to the villa for the night. I thought that since we were planning to drive to the festa at Genazzano to-morrow, it would be nice to have them with us. I am sure they would be interested in seeing the festa.’
Marcia dropped limply into a chair and looked at her aunt. ‘Is Mr. Dessart coming too?’
‘I invited him, certainly. What’s the matter? Aren’t you pleased? I thought you liked him.’
‘Oh, yes, I do; only—I wish I’d got up earlier!’ And then she laughed. The situation was rather funny, after all. She might as well make the best of it. ‘Suppose we send over to Palestrina and invite M. Benoit for dinner,’ she suggested presently. ‘I think he is stopping there this week, and it would be nice to have him. I suspect,’ she added, ‘that he is a tiny bit interested in Eleanor.’
A note was sent by a groom, who returned with the information that he had found the gentleman sitting on a rock in a field, painting a portrait of a sheep; that he had delivered the note, and got this in return.
‘This’ was a rapid sketch on bristol-board, representing the young Frenchman in evening clothes making a bow, with his hand on his heart, to the two ladies, who received him on the steps of the loggia, while a clock in the corner pointed to eight.
Marcia looked at the sketch and laughed. ‘Here’s an original acceptance, Aunt Katherine.’
Mrs. Copley smiled appreciatively. ‘He seems to be a very original young man,’ she conceded.
‘Naturellement. He’s a prix de Rome.’