‘It all depends,’ he demurred, ‘upon how they kept theirs white and how I got mine speckled.’
‘Our frate has afforded a long moral,’ she laughed.
‘Ah—and I suspect he didn’t deserve it. He looks, poor devil, as if his heart were still in the world, in spite of the fact that he himself is in the cloister.’
‘In that case,’ she returned, ‘he’s lost the world for nothing, for his prayers will not be answered unless his heart is in them.’
‘There’s a tragedy!’ said Sybert—‘to have lost the world, and then, in spite of it, to turn up in the end with a dusty soul!’
They looked at each other soberly, and then they both laughed.
‘Philosophy is a queer thing,’ said Marcia. ‘You may go as far as you please, but you always end where you started.’
‘“Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break on vain philosophy’s aye-bubbling spring,”’ he repeated softly, with his eyes on the fire; and then he leaned toward her and laughed again. ‘Miss Marcia, do you know I have an idea?’
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s about you and me—I have a theory that we might be pretty good friends.’
‘I thought we’d been friends for some time,’ she returned evasively. ‘I am sure my uncle’s friends are mine.’
‘Really, I hadn’t suspected it! But it’s the same with friends as with politics and religion: they don’t amount to much until you find them for yourself.’
She considered this in silence.
‘I should say,’ he added, ‘that we’d been pretty good enemies all this time. What do you say to our being friends, for a change?’
Marcia glanced away in a sudden spasm of shyness.
‘Shall we try it?’ he asked in a low tone, bending toward her and laying his hand palm upward on the arm of her chair.
She dropped her hand into his hesitatingly, and his fingers closed upon it. He looked at the fire a moment, and then back in her face.
‘Marcia,’ he said softly, ‘did you ever hear the Tuscan proverb, “The foes of yesterday become the friends of to-day and the lovers of to-morrow”?’
A quick wave of colour swept over her face, and a faint answering flush appeared in his. She drew her hand away and rose to her feet, with a light laugh that put the last few minutes ages away.
‘I’m afraid it’s getting late, and Aunt Katherine would be scandalized if she found her malaria patient waiting up for her. I will leave you to smoke in peace.’
Sybert rose and followed her into the hall. He chose a tall brass candlestick from the row on the chimney-piece, lighted it, and handed it to her with a silent bow.
‘Thank you,’ said Marcia, with a brief glance at his face. She paused on the landing and looked down. He was standing on the rug at the foot of the stairs, watching her with an amused smile.
‘Buona notte, Signor Siberti,’ she murmured.
‘Buona notte, signorina,’ he returned, with a little laugh. ‘Pleasant dreams!’
CHAPTER XVIII
‘Shall I do it high or low, ma’am?’
Marcia, who was sitting before the mirror in a lace camisole, fidgeted impatiently.
‘Oh, do it any way you please, Granton, only hurry—low, I think. That will look best with my gown. But do be quick about it. I have to go downstairs.’
‘There’s plenty of time,’ replied the maid, imperturbably. ‘But I would be a little faster if you would kindly sit still.’
‘Very well, Granton; I won’t move for five minute. I’m really getting excited, though; and I didn’t care a bit for the party until it began.’
‘Yes, ma’am. If you’ll just turn your head a little more this way. It’s very early.’
‘I know, but I have to go down and be sure that Pietro understands about the lights. He’s so stupid, he has to be watched every minute. And, Granton, as soon as you get through with Mrs. Copley please go and help Bianca dress Miss Royston. Bianca doesn’t know anything more about fixing hair than a rabbit.’
Granton’s silence breathed acquiescence in this statement, and under impulse of the implied compliment she became more sprightly in her movements as she skilfully twisted Marcia’s yellow-brown hair into a seemingly simple coil at the nape of her neck.
For the past three days the house had been full of guests and though Marcia had been somewhat cold in her anticipations of the time, she found herself thoroughly enjoying it when it came. The days had been filled with rides and drives and impromptu gaiety. Paul Dessart had been master of the revels, and he filled the office brilliantly. He had supplied the leaven of fun on every occasion, and had been so thoroughly tactful that his host and hostess had gratefully blessed him, and Marcia had cast him more than one involuntary glance of approval. And this was her birthday and the night of the ball. All day long she had been the centre of a congratulatory group, the recipient of prettily worded felicitations; and she not unnaturally found it pleasant. The afternoon train had brought still more guests from Rome, and Villa Vivalanti’s nineteen bedrooms were none too many. Five o’clock tea on the terrace had in itself been in the nature of a festa, with gaily dressed groups coming and going amid the sound of laughter and low voices; while the excitable Italian servants scurried to and fro, placing tea-tables and carrying cups.
Marcia had been secretly disappointed that afternoon by the non-arrival of one guest whom she had half expected—and Eleanor Royston had been frankly so.
‘Mr. Copley,’ Eleanor had inquired of her host, as he offered her a cup of tea, ‘where’s that friend of yours, Mr. Laurence Sybert?’
‘Quelling rioters, I presume. It’s more in his line just now than attending balls.’
‘As if anything could be more in a diplomat’s line than attending balls! With all the other diplomats here and off their guard, it’s just the time to learn state secrets. And he’s the most interesting man in Rome,’ she complained. ‘I wanted to add him to my collection.’
‘Your collection?’ Mr. Copley’s startled expression approached a stare.
‘Of interesting men,’ she explained. ‘Oh, don’t be alarmed; I don’t scalp them. The collection is purely mental—it’s small enough, so far, to be carried in my head. It’s merely that I am a student of human nature and am constantly on the alert for fresh specimens. Your Mr. Sybert is puzzling; I don’t know just how to classify him.’
‘Ah, I see! It is merely a scientific interest you take in him.’ Mr. Copley’s tone was one of relief. ‘If I can be of any assistance with the label—I am sure that he would feel honoured to grace your collection.’
‘I am not so sure,’ said Marcia. ‘Wait till you hear the others, Uncle Howard! A Kansas politician who wants to be a poet, an engineer on the Claytons’ yacht, a Russian prince who talks seven languages and can’t express his thoughts in any, and—who were the others, Eleanor? Oh, yes! the blacksmith who married the maid and beats her.’
‘You don’t do them justice,’ Eleanor remonstrated, ‘Those are merely their accidental, extrinsic qualities. That which makes them interesting is something intrinsic.’
Mr. Copley shot her an amused glance, and drawing up a chair, sat down beside her, prepared to argue it out.
‘The list has possibilities, Miss Royston,’ he assured her, ‘though of course one can’t judge without knowing the gentlemen personally. With which one, may I ask, are you going to classify Mr. Sybert?’
‘Oh, in a separate pigeonhole by himself. That is just what makes my collection interesting.’ It was evidently a subject that she discussed with some relish. ‘Most men, you know—you look them over and immediately assign them to a group with a lot of others; but once in a while you come across a man who goes entirely by himself—is what the French call an original—and he is worth studying.’
Mr. Copley took out a cigarette and regarded it speculatively. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘The best study of mankind is man—and so you think Sybert a specimen who deserves a pigeonhole by himself?’