Marcia, with a laugh and a quick flush, held out both of hers. ‘It’s a secret,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you guessed it, but you must promise on your honour as a gentleman and a diplomat not to tell a single soul!’
‘I must tell my wife,’ he pleaded. ‘It’s a case of “I told you so,” and she usually comes out ahead in such cases. You can’t ask me to hide what little light I have under a bushel.’
‘I don’t care so much about Mrs. Melville,’ Marcia gave a reluctant consent. ‘But promise me one thing: that you’ll never, never breathe a word to—I don’t know her name—the Lady who Writes.’
‘The Lady who Writes? Who on earth is she talking about, Sybert?’
‘The greatest gossip in Rome,’ appended Marcia.
‘Madame Laventi!’ Melville laughed. ‘You’re too late, Miss Marcia. She knows it already. Madame Laventi does not get her news by word of mouth; the birds carry it to her. Good night,’ he added, and he strolled discreetly into the salon. But his caution was unnecessary; their parting was blatantly innocent.
Sybert chose a tall brass candlestick from the row on the mantelpiece and handed it to her with a bow.
‘Thank you,’ said Marcia.
She paused on the landing and smiled down.
‘Buona notte, Signor Siberti,’ she murmured.
He smiled back from the foot of the stairs.
‘Buona notte, signorina. Pleasant dreams!’
Hearing the sound of voices within, Marcia paused at Mrs. Copley’s door to ask about her uncle. She found the room strewn with the contents of several wardrobes, and her aunt and Granton kneeling each before an open trunk.
‘Good gracious, Aunt Katherine!’ she exclaimed in amazement. ‘What are you doing? It’s one o’clock.’
‘We are packing, my dear.’
Marcia sat down on the bed with a hysterical giggle. ‘Aunt Katherine, if I didn’t know the contrary, I should swear you were born a Copley.’
Mrs. Copley withdrew her head from the trunk and looked about for something further to fit in. In passing she cast her niece a reproachful glance. ‘I don’t see how you can be so flippant, Marcia, after what we’ve been through to-night—and with your uncle lying wounded in the next room! It’s only one chance in a hundred that we aren’t all in our graves by now. I shall not draw an easy breath until we have landed safely in the streets of New York. Just hand me that pile of things on the chair there.’ Her gaze rested upon a parti-coloured assortment of ribbons and laces and gloves.
Marcia suppressed another smile. ‘I know it isn’t the time to laugh, Aunt Katherine, but I can’t help it. You’re so—sort of businesslike. It never would have occurred to me to pack to-night.’
‘We are going into Rome the first thing to-morrow morning, and with only Granton to help there is no time to lose. We might as well begin while we are waiting for the doctor—he surely ought to be here by now,’ she added, her anxiety coming to the fore. ‘What do you suppose takes him so long? It’s been an hour since we sent.’
‘It’s four miles to Palestrina, Aunt Katherine. And you must remember it’s the middle of the night; the man was probably in bed and asleep. It will be another half hour at least before he can get here.’
‘Yes, I suppose so’—Mrs. Copley turned back to her packing—‘but I can’t help being worried! One suspects everybody after an experience like this. I am really feeling very nervous over your uncle’s arm; he makes light of it, but it may be more serious than any of us think. There’s always so much danger of lockjaw or blood-poisoning from a wound of that sort. I shall not feel satisfied about it until we can get into Rome and consult an American doctor.’
‘May I see him?’ Marcia asked, ‘or is he asleep?’
‘No, he’s awake; but you must not excite him.’
Marcia tapped lightly on Mr. Copley’s door and entered. He was propped up on pillows, his arm in a sling. She crossed over and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I’m so sorry, Uncle Howard,’ she murmured.
‘Oh, it’s nothing to make a fuss over. I got off very easily.’
‘I don’t mean just your arm—I mean—everything.’
‘Ah,’ said Copley, and shut his eyes.
‘But, after all,’ she added, ‘it may be for the best. The Italians don’t understand what you are doing. I don’t believe two such different races can understand each other.’
He opened his eyes with a humorous smile. ‘It’s rather a comic-opera ending,’ he agreed. ‘I have a feeling that before the curtain goes down I should join hands with the bandits and come out and make my bow.’
‘There are lots of things to be done in America, and they’ll appreciate you more at home.’
‘I think I’ll buy a yacht and go in for racing, as your aunt suggests. I may come off in that—if I have a captain.’
Marcia sat silent a moment, looking down on his finely lined, sensitive face.
‘Uncle Howard,’ she said slowly, ‘it seems as if the good you do is some way cast up to the credit side of the world’s account and helps just so much to overcome the bad, whether any one knows about it or not. You may go away and leave it all behind and never be appreciated, but it’s a positive quantity just the same. It’s so much accomplished on the right side.’
Her uncle smiled again.
‘I’m afraid that’s rather too idealistic a philosophy for this generation. We’re living in a material age, and it takes something more solid than good intentions to make much impression on it. I have a sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t born to set the world to rights. Many men are reformers in their youth, but I’m reaching the age when a club and a good dinner are excellent anodynes for my own and other people’s troubles.’
A shadow fell over her face and she looked down in her lap without answering.
After a moment he asked suddenly, ‘Where’s Sybert, Marcia?’
‘I think he’s downstairs waiting for the doctor.’
‘Ah!’ said Copley again, with a little sigh.
Marcia slipped down on her knees beside the bed. ‘Uncle Howard,’ she whispered, ‘I want to tell you something. I’m—going to marry Mr. Sybert.’
Copley raised himself on his elbow and stared at her.
‘You are going to marry Sybert?’ he repeated incredulously.
‘Yes, uncle,’ she smiled. ‘He asked me to.’
‘Sybert!’ Copley repeated, with an astonished laugh. ‘Holy St. Francis! What a change is here!’
‘I thought you would be pleased,’ she said a little tremulously.
He stretched out his hand and laid it over hers. ‘My dear Marcia, nothing could have pleased me more. He’s the finest man I have ever known, and I begin to suspect that you are the finest girl. But—good gracious! Marcia, I must be blind and deaf and dumb. I had a notion you didn’t like each other.’
‘We’ve changed our minds,’ she said; ‘and I wanted you to know it because I thought it would make you feel better.’
‘And so it does, Marcia,’ he said heartily. ‘The year has accomplished something, after all; and I’m glad for Sybert’s sake that he’s got this just now, for, poor fellow, he’s in a deeper hole than I.’
Marcia pressed his hand gratefully as her aunt came bustling in with her arms full of clothes.
‘Howard,’ she asked, ‘shall I have Granton pack your heavy flannels, or shall you want them on the steamer?’
Her husband attempted a shrug and found the bandages would not permit it.
‘I think perhaps I’d better leave them out. It’s June, of course; but I’ve known very cold crossings even in July.’
Copley turned on his side and wrenched his arm again.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Katherine,’ he groaned, ‘pack them, throw them away, burn them, do anything you please.’
Mrs. Copley came to the bedside and bent over him anxiously. ‘What’s the matter, dear? Is your arm very painful? You don’t suppose,’ she added in sudden alarm, that the stiletto was poisoned, do you?’