‘About eight; it takes almost two hours to get there,’ said Mrs. Copley. ‘Marcia is not going,’ she added.
‘Why not, Miss Marcia?’
She looked a trifle self-conscious as she put forth her excuse. ‘I’ve been having a little touch of malaria, and Aunt Katherine thought perhaps the night air–’
‘I remember, when I was a boy in school, I used frequently to have headaches on Monday mornings,’ said Sybert, with a show of sympathy.
Marcia sat in her room till she heard the carriage drive away, then she dragged a wicker chair out to the balcony which overlooked the eastern hills, already darkened into silhouettes against the sky. She sat leaning back with her hands clasped in her lap, watching the outlines of the old monastery fade into the night. She thought of the pale young monk with his questioning eyes, and wondered what sort of troubles people who lived in monasteries had. They were at least not her troubles, she smiled, as she thought of Paul Dessart.
Suddenly she leaned over the railing and sniffed the light breeze as it floated up from the garden. Mingled with the sweet scent of lilies and oleanders was the heavy odour of a cigar. Her pulses suddenly quickened. Could–? She pushed her chair back and rose with an impatient movement. Pietro was holding a rendezvous with his friends again, and entertaining them with her uncle’s tobacco. The night was chilly and she was cold. She turned into the dark room with a little laugh at herself: she was staying away from the contessa’s musicale to avoid the night air?
She groped about the table for a book and started downstairs with the half-hearted intention of reading out the evening in the salon. A wood fire had been kindled that afternoon, to dispel the slight dampness which the stone walls seemed to exude at the slightest suggestion of an eastern wind. It had burned low now, and the embers gave out a slight glow which was not obliterated by the two flickering candles on the table—Pietro’s frugal soul evidently looked upon the lamp as unnecessary when Mr. and Mrs. Copley were away. Marcia piled on more sticks, with a shake of her head at Italian servants. The one thing in the world that they cannot learn is to build a fire; generations of economy having ingrained within them a notion that fuel is too precious to burn.
The blaze once more started, instead of ringing for a lamp and settling down to her book, she dropped into a chair and sat lazily watching the flames. Italy had got its hold upon her, with its spell of Lethian inertia. She wished only to close her eyes and drift idly with the current.
Presently she heard the outer door open and close, and steps cross the hall. She looked up with a start to see Laurence Sybert in the doorway.
‘What’s the matter—did I surprise you?’ he inquired.
‘Yes; I thought you had gone to the party.’
‘I was in the wine-cellar just as much as you,’ he returned, with a little laugh, as he drew up a chair beside her. ‘Why can’t I have malaria too?’
His sudden appearance had been disconcerting, and her usual self-assurance seemed to be wandering to-night. She did not know what to say, and she half rose.
‘I was just going to ring for the lamp when you came. Pietro must have forgotten it. Would you mind–’
Sybert glanced lazily across the room at the bell. ‘Oh, sit still. We have light enough to talk by, and you surely aren’t intending to read when you have a guest.’ He stretched out his hand and took possession of her book.
‘I don’t flatter myself that you stayed away from the contessa’s to talk to me,’ she returned as she leaned back again with a slight shrug.
‘Why else should I have stayed?’ he inquired. ‘Do you think, when it came to the point, your uncle wouldn’t give me a coat?’
‘Probably you found that it didn’t fit.’
Sybert laughed. ‘No, Miss Marcia; I didn’t even try. I stayed because—I wanted to talk with you.’
She let the statement pass in silence, and Sybert addressed himself to a careful rearrangement of the burning wood. When he finally laid down the tongs he remarked in a casual tone, ‘I owe you an apology—will you accept it?’
‘What for?’
‘You appear to have several counts against me—suppose we don’t go into details. I offer a collective apology.’
‘Because you called me “the Wheat Princess”? Oh, yes, I’ll excuse it; I dare say you were justified.’
He leaned forward with a slight frown.
‘Certainly I was not justified; it was neither kind nor gentlemanly, and I am sorry that I said it. I can only promise to have better manners in the future.’
Marcia dismissed the subject with a gesture.
‘Let me tell you about the good your money has done.’
‘No, please don’t! I don’t want to hear. I know that it’s horrible, and that you did the best with it possible. I’m glad if it helped. My father is sending some wheat that will be here in a few weeks.’
‘Miss Marcia,’ he said slowly, ‘I wish you wouldn’t take this matter so badly. Your uncle was out of his senses when he talked to you, and he didn’t realize what he was saying. He feels awfully cut up about it. He told me to-night that he was afraid he had spoiled your summer, and that he wouldn’t have hurt you for the world.’
Marcia’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and she bit her lip. Sybert leaned forward and poked the fire.
‘I should like to talk to you about your uncle,’ he said, with his eyes fixed on the embers. ‘He is one of the finest men I have ever known. And it is not often that a man in his position amounts to much—that is, as a human being; the temptations are all the other way. Most men, you know, with leisure and his tastes would—well, go in for collecting carved ivory and hammered silver and all that rubbish. Nobody understands what he is trying to do, least of all the people he is doing it for. He does it very quietly and in his own way, and he doesn’t ask for thanks. Still, just a little appreciation would be grateful; and, instead of that, he is abused at every turn. This wheat business increased the feeling against him, and naturally he feels sore. The other evening he’d just been reading some articles about the trouble in a Roman paper, and I had been telling him about your encounter with the village people when you came in. It was an unfortunate moment you chose, and he forgot himself. I wish you would be as kind to him as you can, for he has a good many critics outside, and—’ Sybert hesitated an instant—‘he needs a little sympathy at home.’
Marcia drew a deep breath.
‘I understand about Uncle Howard,’ she said. ‘I used to think sometimes—’ she hesitated too—‘that he wasn’t very happy, but I didn’t know the reason. Of course I don’t blame him for what he said; I know he was worried, and I know he didn’t mean it. In any case, I should rather know the truth. But about the wheat,’ she continued, ‘my father is not to blame the way you think he is. He and Uncle Howard don’t understand each other, but I understand them both, and if I had known sooner I could have stopped it. He didn’t have the remotest idea of harming Italy or any other country. He just thought about getting ahead of a lot of others, and—you know what men are like—making people look up to him. He’s very quick; he sees things faster than other men; he knows what’s going to happen ahead of time, and you can’t expect him not to take advantage of it. Of course’—she flushed—‘he wants to make money, too; but it isn’t all that, for he doesn’t use it after he gets it made. It’s the beating others that he likes—the power it gives him. I’m afraid,’ she added, with a slightly pathetic smile, ‘that I shall have to go home and look after him.’