‘Yes, I think he does, though I haven’t quite decided on the hole yet. That’s why it worries me that he didn’t come to the party. One hates to leave these little matters unsolved.’
‘I am sincerely sorry for you to have lost the opportunity. I must tell him your opinion.’
‘No, indeed!’ remonstrated Eleanor. ‘I may meet him again some day, and if you tell him I shall never learn the truth. One’s only chance is to catch them unawares.’
‘You’re a very penetrating person, Miss Royston.’
‘I’ve been out nine seasons,’ she laughed. ‘You can trust me to know a man when I see one!’
‘I wish you’d teach Marcia some of your lore,’ he murmured, as he turned toward the loggia to greet a fresh carriageful of guests.
Even though one man were missing, still a great many others were there, and it had only been an undercurrent of Marcia’s consciousness in any case that had considered the matter. The laughter and babel of voices, the gay preparations and hurrying servants, had had their effect. As Granton clasped about her neck Mr. Copley’s expiatory gift—a copy of an old Etruscan necklace in pearls and uncut emeralds set in hammered gold—she was as pleasurably excited as a young woman may legitimately be on the eve of a birthday ball.
‘There, Granton; that’s all,’ she cried, catching up her very Parisian skirts and flying for the door. ‘Hurry with the others, please, for it won’t be long before the guests begin coming.’
She started downstairs, pulling on her gloves as she went. She paused a moment on the landing to view the scene below, and she blinked once or twice as it dawned upon her that Laurence Sybert was standing at the foot of the stairs watching her, just as he had stood the last time she had seen him when he bade her good-night. For a moment she felt an absurd tremor run through her, and then with something like a gulp she collected herself and went on down to greet him.
‘Mr. Sybert! We were afraid you weren’t coming. When did you get here?’
‘On the late train. I have been in the south, and I didn’t get back to the city till this afternoon.’
‘Your arrivals are always so spectacular,’ she said. ‘We entirely give you up, and then the first thing we know you are quietly standing before us on the rug.’
‘I should call that the reverse of spectacular.’
‘Have you seen Uncle Howard? Did they find any place to put you? The house is cram full.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve been officially welcomed. I have a bed in your uncle’s dressing-room.’
‘You may be thankful for that. The next comer, I am afraid, will be put in the cellar.’
Sybert did not choose to prolong these amenities of welcome any further, and he stood quietly watching her while she buttoned her gloves. She looked very radiant to-night, with the candle-light gleaming on her hair and her hazel eyes shining with excitement. Her gown was the filmiest, shimmering white with an undertone of green. About her neck the pearls gleamed whitely, each separate jewel a pulsing globe of light. Marcia glanced up and touched the necklace with her hand.
‘This is Uncle Howard’s birthday present,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it lovely? It’s a copy of an old, old necklace in Castellani’s collection. My uncle gives me pearls, and my father is sending wheat.’
She turned aside into the long salon, and Sybert followed her. If Marcia had been momentarily jostled from her self-possession by his sudden appearance, she had completely regained her poise. She was buoyantly at her ease again. There was a touch of intimacy, almost of coquetry, about her manner as she talked; and yet—Sybert noted the fact with a sub-smile of comprehension—she avoided crossing eyes with him. That moment by the fireside was still too vivid. They returned to the hall, and Marcia stepped to the door leading on to the loggia. The cornice was outlined with tiny coloured lamps, while a man was lighting others by the terrace balustrade. She glanced back at Sybert, who was standing still in the hall.
‘You aren’t going out?’ he asked.
‘Just a moment. I want to see how it looks.’
He looked at her bare shoulders with a slight frown. ‘Bring the signorina a wrap,’ he said to the servant at the door.
‘I don’t need a wrap,’ said Marcia; ‘it’s a warm night.’
Sybert shook his head with an expression that was familiar.
‘Oh, if you wish to say anything, say it!’ she cried. ‘Only please don’t look at me with that smile. It’s the way you looked the first time I saw you—and I don’t like it.’
‘I have nothing to say. When a young woman threatened with malaria proposes to go out into an Italian night, bare-shouldered, a mere man is left speechless.’
‘Pride would keep me warm.’
‘I haven’t a doubt of it; but in case it should for the moment fail–’ He took the long white cloak from the man’s arm and glanced at it with another expression as he placed it on her shoulders. It was composed mostly of chiffon and lace.
‘All is vanity that comes from a Paris shop!’ laughed Marcia.
Sybert lit a cigarette and followed her. ‘Well?’ he asked, as they paused by the terrace balustrade. ‘Does it meet with your approval?’
‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ she replied as she looked back at the broad, white façade with its gleaming windows. There was no moon, but a clear, star-sprinkled sky. In all the dark landscape the villa alone was a throbbing centre of life and light. Rows of coloured lanterns were beginning to outline the avenue leading to the gate, and in the ilex grove tiny red and blue and white bulbs glowed among the branches like the blossoms of some tropical night-blooming cereus. Servants were hurrying past the windows, musicians were commencing to tune their instruments; everywhere was the excitement of preparation.
‘And this is your birthday,’ he said. ‘I suppose you have received many pretty speeches to-day, Miss Marcia; I hope they may all come true.’ She glanced up in his face, and he looked down with a smile. ‘Twenty-three is a great age!’
A shadow flitted across her face. ‘Isn’t it?’ she sighed. ‘I thought twenty-two was bad enough—but twenty-three! It won’t be many years before I’ll be really getting old.’
Sybert laughed. ‘It’s been a long time since I saw twenty-three—when I first came back to Rome.’
‘Twelve years,’ said Marcia.
‘It’s an easy enough problem if you care to work it out. I don’t care to, any more.’
‘It’s not bad for a man,’ she said; ‘but a woman grows old so young!’
‘You need not worry over that just now. The grey hairs will not come for some time yet.’
‘I’m not worrying,’ she laughed. ‘I was just thinking—it isn’t nice to grow old, is it?’
‘Certainly not. It’s the great tragedy of life; and it comes to all, Miss Marcia—to you as well as to the poorest peasant girl in Castel Vivalanti. Life, after all, contains some justice.’
Marcia turned her back to the shining villa and looked down over the great Campagna stretching away darkly under the stars, with here and there the gleam of a shepherd’s fire, built to ward off the poison in the air.
‘Things are not very just,’ she said slowly.
‘Not very,’ he agreed; ‘and one has little faith that they ever will be—either in this world or the next.’
‘It would be comfortable, wouldn’t it, if you could only believe that people are unfortunate as a punishment—because they deserve to be.’
‘It would be a beautiful belief, but one which you can scarcely hold in Italy.’
‘Poor Italy!’ she sighed.
‘Ah—poor Italy!’ he echoed.
With a sudden motion he threw away his cigarette over the balustrade and immediately lit another. Marcia watched his face in the flare of the match. The eyes seemed deeper-set than usual, the jaw more boldly marked, and there were nervous lines about the mouth. His face seemed to have grown thinner in the last few weeks.