‘Lord, no!’ he laughed. ‘Poisoned daggers went out two centuries ago—it’s a mere scratch, Katherine; don’t worry about it. Go on with your packing—I should hate to miss that first steamer.’
His wife patted the pillows and turned toward the door. ‘Marcia,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘go to bed, child. You will be absolutely worn out to-morrow—and don’t talk to your uncle any more. I’m afraid you will get him excited.’
Marcia bent over and lightly kissed him on the forehead. ‘Good night,’ she whispered. ‘I hope you will feel better in the morning,’ and she turned back to her own room.
She sat down on the couch by the open window and drew the muslin curtains back. The moon was low in the west, hanging over Rome. A cool night breeze was stirring, and the little chill that precedes dawn was in the air. She drew a rug about her and sat looking out, listening to the shuffling tramp of the soldiers and thinking of the long day that had passed. When she waked that morning it had been like any other day, and now everything was changed. This was her last night in the villa, and her heart was full of happiness and sorrow—sorrow for her uncle and Laurence Sybert and the poor peasants. It was Italy to the end—beauty and moonlight and love, mingled with tragedy and death and disappointment. She had a great many things to think about, but she was very, very tired, and with a half-sigh and a half-smile her head drooped on the cushions and she fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXVI
Marcia woke at dawn with the sun in her eyes. She started up dazedly at finding herself dressed in her white evening gown, lying on the couch instead of in bed. Then in a moment the events of yesterday flashed back. The floor was covered with broken glass, and on the wall opposite a dark spot among the rose-garlands showed where Pietro’s misaimed bullet had lodged. On the terrace balustrade below her window two soldiers were sitting, busily throwing dice. They lent an absurd air of unreality to the scene. She stepped to the open doors of the balcony and drew a deep, delighted breath of the fresh morning air. Rome in the west was still sleeping, but every separate crag of the Sabines was glowing a soft pink, and the newly risen sun was hanging like a halo behind the old monastery. It was a day filled with promise.
The next moment she had brought her thoughts back from the distant horizon to the contemplation of homelier matters nearer at hand. Mingled with the early fragrance of roses and dew was the subtly penetrating odour of boiling coffee. Marcia sniffed and considered. Some one was making coffee for the soldiers, who were to be relieved at the ‘Ave Maria.’ She reviewed the possible cooks. Not Granton. The soldiers were Italians, and, for all Granton cared, they could perish from hunger on their way back to Palestrina. Not her aunt. In all probability, she did not know how to make coffee. Not her uncle. He was hors de concours with his wounded arm. The Melvilles! They would not have known where to look for the kitchen. She interrupted her speculations to exchange last night’s evening gown for a fresh blue muslin, and her hasty glance at the mirror as she stole out on tiptoe told her that the slight pallor which comes from three hours’ sleep was not unbecoming. She crept downstairs through the dim hall and paused a second by the open door of the loggia; her eyes involuntarily sought the spot outside the salon window. The rug was back in its place again, and everything was in its usual order. She felt thankful to some one; it was easier so to throw the matter from her mind.
She approached the kitchen softly and paused on the threshold with a reconnoitring glance. The big stone-floored room, with its smoky rafters overhead, was dark always, but especially so at the sunrise hour; its deep-embrasured windows looked to the west. In the farthest, darkest corner, before the big, brick-walled stove, some one was standing with his back turned toward her, and her heart quickened its beating perceptibly. She stood very still for several minutes, watching him; she would hypnotise him to turn around; but before she had fairly commenced with the business, he had picked up the poker by the wrong end and dropped it again. The observation which he made in Italian was quite untranslatable. Marcia tittered and he wheeled about.
‘That’s not fair,’ he objected. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything so bad if I had known you were listening.’
‘Do you know what we do with Gerald when he swears in Italian?’
He shook his head.
‘We wash his mouth with soap.’
‘I hope it doesn’t happen often,’ he shuddered.
‘He speaks very fluent Italian—nearly as fluent as yours.’
‘Suppose we change the subject.’
‘Very well,’ she agreed, advancing to the opposite side of the long central table. ‘What shall we talk about?’
‘We haven’t said good morning.’
She dropped him a smiling curtsy. ‘Good morning, Mr. Sybert.’
‘Mr. Sybert! You haven’t changed your mind overnight, have you?’
Her eyes were more reassuring than her speech. ‘N-no.’
‘No what?’
‘Sir!’ She laughed.
He came around to her side of the table, and faced her with his hands in his jacket pockets.
‘You’ve never in your life pronounced my name. I don’t believe you know it!’
She whispered.
‘Say it louder.’
‘It sounds too familiar,’ she objected, backing against the wall with impudently laughing eyes. ‘You’re so—so sort of old—like Uncle Howard.’
‘Oh, I know you’re young, but you needn’t put on such airs about it. You don’t own all the youth in the world.’
‘Thirty-five!’ she murmured, with a wondering shake of her head.
‘Ah—thirty-five. A very nice age. Just the right age, in fact, to make you mind me. Oh, you needn’t laugh; I’m going to do it fast enough. And right here we’ll begin.’ He folded his arms with a very fierce frown, but with a smile on his lips, quizzical, humorous, comprehending, kindly—the finished result of so many smiles that had gone before. ‘The business in hand, my dear young woman, is to find out whether or not you happen to know the name of the man you’ve promised to marry. Come, let me hear it; say it out loud.’
Marcia looked back tantalizingly a moment, and then, after an inquiring glance about the room as if she were searching to recall it, she dropped her lids and pronounced it with her eyes on the floor.
‘Laurence.’
He unfolded his arms.
‘The coffee’s boiling over!’ Marcia exclaimed.
‘Kiss me good morning.’
‘The coffee’s boiling over.’
‘I don’t care if it is.’
The coffee boiled over with an angry spurt that deluged the stove with hissing steam. Marcia was patently too anxious for its safety to give her attention to anything else. Sybert stalked over and viciously jerked it back, and she picked up the plate of rolls and ran for the door. He caught up with her in the hall.
‘I know why you discharged Marietta,’ he threw out.
‘Why?’
‘If I were a French cook with a moustache and a goatee and a fetching white cap, and you were a black-eyed little Italian nursemaid with gold ear-rings in your ears, I should very frequently let things burn.’
‘Oh,’ Marcia laughed. ‘And I should probably let the little boy I ought to be looking after fall over the balustrade and break his front tooth while I was sitting on the door-step smiling at you.’
‘And so we should be torn apart—there was a tragedy!’ he mused compassionately. ‘I hadn’t realized it before. It proves that you must suffer yourself before you can appreciate the sufferings of others.’
‘French cooks with fetching caps have elastic hearts.’
‘Ah,’ said he, ‘and so have black-eyed little Italian nursemaids—I’m glad you’re not an Italian nursemaid, Marcia.’
‘I’m glad you’re not a French cook—Laurence.’ And then she laughed. ‘Will you tell me something?’