Maxwell leaned back in her chair, and tapped the table with her fingers.
"Well, it has its inconveniences," she remarked drily. "Sylvia is not
like that. Sylvia would never rush into extravagances without first
consulting some one."
He stood up, tall and stiff.
"They are different," he said guardedly.
"Oh, yes--they are different."
Mary Maxwell, who loved playing with fire so long as she did not burn
her own fingers, laughed as she spoke, and afterwards enlarged on the
subject to her husband.
"I," she said, "give him a month--one month. Every one has acted
idiotically in supposing that poor little Sylvia could hold an
affection, and now--see!"
"No one asked him to fall in love. You make him out a wretched cur,"
returned Colonel Maxwell, from behind the sheets of the _Times_.
"If Teresa did not ask him, she managed that it should be easy; always
dressing up that poor little goose in borrowed plumes. Heavens!
Imagine being tied for life to a bundle of platitudes! _You_ can't, you
know; but then you ought not to have left me to say it," she said,
perching herself on the arm of his chair.
"Go along! I'm reading Christie's sale."
"You needn't suppose _you're_ ever going to have a Christie sale. Well,
if you're so unsociable, I shall go and speak at once to Peppina. Do
you hear?"
A grunt replied. In fact he did not hear, or might have offered sound
advice. As it was, Mrs Maxwell was both anxious to impress the girl,
and to have it over quickly, so that she did not linger at
preliminaries. Peppina answered her call with yards of frilling in her
hands.
"About Cesare," Mrs Maxwell began.
"Have you seen him yet?"
"Signora! By your favour! And with all this to be done before night!"
She held up her frills.
"Then you need not go."
"Need not go? Per Bacco, but what has changed, signora?"
"The marchesa will not require Cesare, that is all," said Mrs Maxwell
carelessly.
Peppina was looking hard at her, and there was a queer glitter in her
eyes. She had been dreaming through the night of the lottery and
possible riches, and she immediately connected Wilbraham's visit with
her disappointment. There was, however, no use in talking.
"I am sorry, signora," she said, drawing a deep angry breath. "It would
have been good for the poor fellow."
"He will find something better to do."
"In Rome!" The girl flung out her hands with a gesture of hopelessness
which made Mrs Maxwell uncomfortable.
"Really, Peppina," she said pettishly, "as you have not told him, I
can't see that there is much harm done. If I give you five lire for
him, he ought to be delighted."
"The signora is always so generous!" said Peppina. Her fingers closed
round the note, but her eyes had not lost their dangerous gleam, and her
face was pale. Mrs Maxwell, quite satisfied with herself, went away,
wondering, it must be confessed, how Teresa would bear this interruption
of her plans for the good of mankind. But she thought if they all
opposed her wish to enlist Cesare, that she would yield, especially
because, for Sylvia's sake, she avoided anything which Wilbraham
appeared particularly to dislike.
Peppina went that evening to the house of a sister-in-law near the
Piazza Navona, and sent a child to seek for Cesare. When he came, she
made a sign that she wished to speak to him alone, and they went out
into the piazza. The south wind fluttered warmly, and the sky was thick
with stars. She told her story quickly, holding back Donna Teresa's
name, because she had never been sure that he would have worked for her.
As it was, he only heard that a chance had been snatched from him.
"It was the Englishman, I know it!" cried Peppina. "You were quite
right. He hates you."
"I will be even with him one day," said Cesare in a low fierce voice.
"He came to the house in all that rain; they talked--talked--I heard
them. And as soon as he had gone, in comes the signora to me. She
thought herself so clever, because she did not say his name. As if I
were a fool!"
Peppina's voice was passionately contemptuous. They had turned out of
the piazza and were passing along the narrow street at the end of which
is Pasquino's mutilated figure.
"I will be even with him," repeated Cesare.
"There was money in it, English money, too, which is better. And now
Angelo suffers as well."
"Have I not said that I will be even with him? Do not throw words
about," he exclaimed, turning sharply on her. "My blood is hot enough
without your putting fire to it."
"Eh--and those are my thanks!" cried the girl, flinging from him.
He made no answer, and they walked sullenly abreast of each other till
they had passed the tragic block of the Cancellaria where Rossi was
killed. Then Peppina drew nearer, glancing from time to time at her
lover.
"What shall you do?" she said at last in a low voice.
He did not answer her directly.
"You can find out where he goes, what he does?" he said at last.
"From one or the other--yes."
"He leaves Rome perhaps for Naples?"
"Perhaps. I do not know. But not yet."
"I can wait," he said significantly. They relapsed into silence again,
walking in the shadows. It was Peppina who at last spoke again.
Cesare's life was so solitary that he felt little need of speech. All
the money he could earn was spent on Angelo, and in providing himself
with the barest necessaries of life. He was never seen in a wine-shop.
"I will go to that Nina of those people in the Porta Pinciana," said the
girl. "The Englishman marries one of them, and she will chatter like a
magpie if I let her. It will please you if I find out, eh, Cesare mio?"
She touched his arm softly with her finger as she spoke, and turned up
her face to his. He stooped and kissed her.
"I have told you," he said briefly. But she missed a passionate ring in
his voice for which she hungered.
"I believe you are thinking only of the Englishman," she said with
reproach.
"That is true," he allowed simply. "He fills my being. There seems no
room for anything else, not even for you. You must wait, Peppina."
If it had been a woman of whom he spoke, her wild blood would have
carried her away. But she understood and could sympathise when he only
meant revenge. It seemed quite natural to her.
"I will wait," she said. "Yes."