‘Tell me you don’t love Sybert.’
‘Paul, you have no right–’
‘I have no right! You said there was no one else, and I believed you; and now, when I ask for an explanation, you tell me to go about my business. I suppose you were beginning to get tired of me these last few days, and thought–’
‘You have no right to talk to me this way! I haven’t meant to deceive you. You asked me if there were any one else, and I told you there was not, and it was true. I’m sorry—sorry to hurt you, but it’s better to find it out now.’
Paul rose to his feet with a very hard laugh.
‘Oh, yes, decidedly it’s better to find it out now. It would have been still better if you had found it out sooner.’
He turned his back and kicked the coping of the fountain viciously. Marcia crossed over to him and touched him on the arm.
‘Paul,’ she said, ‘I can’t let it end so. I know I have been very much to blame, but not as you think. I liked you so much.’
He turned and saw the tears in her eyes, and his anger vanished.
‘Oh, I know. I’ve no business to speak so—but—I’m naturally cut up, you know. Don’t cry about it; you can’t help it. If you don’t love me, you don’t, and that ends the matter. I’ll get over it, Marcia.’ He smiled a trifle bleakly. ‘I’m not the fellow to sit down and cry when I can’t have what I want. I’ve gone without things before.’ He offered her his arm. ‘We’ll go back now; I’m afraid you’re missing your dances.’
Marcia barely touched his arm, and they turned back without speaking. He led her into the hall, and bowing with his eyes on the floor, turned back out of doors. She laughed and chatted her way through two or three groups before she could reach the stairs and escape to her own room, where she locked the door and sank down on the floor by the couch. Trouble was beginning for her sooner than she had thought, and underneath the remorse and pity she felt for Paul, the thing that lay like lead on her heart was the look on Sybert’s face as he turned away.
A knock presently came on the door, followed by a rattling of the knob.
‘Marcia, Marcia!’ called Eleanor Royston. ‘Are you in there?’ Marcia raised her head and listened in silence.
The knock came again. She rose and went to the door.
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I want to come in. It’s I—Eleanor. Open the door. Why don’t you come down?’
Marcia shook out her rumpled skirts, pushed back her hair, and opened the door.
‘Everybody’s asking for you. The ambassador says you were engaged to him for a– Why, what’s the matter?’
Marcia drew back quickly into the shadow, and Eleanor stepped in and closed the door behind her.
‘What’s the matter, child?’ she inquired again. ‘You’ve been crying! Has Paul–?’ she asked suddenly. Eleanor’s intuitive faculties were abnormally developed. ‘I suppose he was pretty nasty,’ she proceeded, taking Marcia’s answer for granted. ‘He can be on occasion. But, to tell you the truth, I think he has some cause to be. I think you deserve all you got.’
Marcia sank into a chair with a gesture of weariness, and Eleanor walked about the room handling the ornaments.
‘Oh, I knew he was in love with you. There’s nothing subtle about Paul. He wears his heart on his sleeve, if any one ever did. But if you don’t mind my saying so, Marcia, I think you’ve been playing with rather a high hand. It’s hardly legitimate, you know, to deliberately set out to make a man fall in love with you.’
‘I haven’t been playing. I didn’t mean to.’
‘Oh, nonsense! Men don’t fall in love without a little encouragement; and I’m not blind—I’ve been watching you. If you want my honest opinion, I think you’ve been pretty unfair with Paul.’
‘I know it,’ Marcia said miserably; ‘you can’t blame me any worse than I blame myself. But you just can’t love people if you don’t.’
‘I’m not blaming you for not loving him; it’s for his loving you. That, by using a little foresight, might have been avoided. However, I don’t know that I’m exactly the person to preach.’ Eleanor dropped into a chair with a short laugh, and leaned forward with her chin in her hand and her eyes on Marcia’s face. ‘I have a theory, Marcia—it’s more than a theory: it’s a superstition,—that some day we’ll be paid in our own coin. I’m twenty-eight, and a good many men have thought they were in love with me, while I myself have never managed to fall in love with any of them. But I’m going to, some day—hard—and then either he’s not going to care about me or something’s going to be in the way so that we can’t marry. It’s going to be a tragedy. I know it as well as I know I’m sitting here. I’m going to pay for my nine seasons, and with interest. It makes me reckless; the score is already so heavy against me that a few more items don’t count. But I know my tragedy’s coming, and the longer I put it off the worse it’s going to be. It’s a nice superstition; I’ll share it with you, Marcia.’
Marcia smiled rather sorrily. It was not a superstition she cared to have thrust upon her just then. She was divining it for herself, and did not need Eleanor to put it into words.
‘As for Paul, you couldn’t do anything else, of course. You’re not fitted to each other for a moment, and you’ll grow more unfitted every day. Paul needs some one who is more objective—who doesn’t think too much—some one like—well, like Margaret, for instance. In the meantime, you needn’t worry; he’ll manage to survive it.’ She rose with another laugh and stood over Marcia’s chair. ‘It’s over and done with, and can’t be helped; there’s nothing to cry about. But mark my words, Marcia Copley, you’ll be falling in love yourself some day, and then I—Paul will be avenged. Meanwhile there are several years before you in which you can have a very good time. Come on; we must go downstairs. The people will be leaving in a little while. Bathe your eyes, and I’ll fix your hair.’
Marcia went downstairs and laughed and danced and talked again, and once she almost stopped in the middle of a speech to wonder how she could do it. It was finally with heartfelt thankfulness that she watched the people beginning to leave. Once, as she was bidding a group good night, she caught sight of Sybert in the hall bending over the contessa’s hand. She covertly studied his face, but it was more darkly inscrutable than ever. She slipped upstairs as soon as the last carriage had rolled away; it was not until long after the sunlight had streamed into her windows, however, that she finally closed her eyes. Eleanor Royston’s pleasant ‘superstition’ she was pondering very earnestly.
CHAPTER XX
The ball ended, the guests gone, Villa Vivalanti forgot its one burst of gaiety, and settled down again to its usual state of peaceful somnolence. The days were growing warmer. White walls simmering in the sunshine, fragrant garden borders resonant with the hum of insects, the cool green of the ilex grove, the sleepy, slow drip of the fountain—it was all so beautifully Italian, and so very, very lonely! During the hot mid-days Marcia would sit by the ruins of the old villa or pace the shady ilex walks with her feelings in a tumult. She had seen neither Paul Dessart nor Laurence Sybert since the evening of her birthday, and that moment by the fountain when the three had faced each other silently was not a pleasant memory. It was one, however, which recurred many times a day.
Of Sybert Marcia heard no news whatever. In reply to her casual question as to when he would be at the villa again, her uncle had remarked that just at present Sybert had more important things to think of than taking a villeggiatura in the Sabine hills. But of Paul Dessart and the Roystons most unexpected news had come. Paul’s father had had an ‘attack’ brought on by overwork, and they were all of them going home. The letters were written on the train en route for Cherbourg; a long letter from Margaret, a short one from Eleanor. The latter afforded some food for reflection, but the reflection did not bring enlightenment.