‘SHALL I do it high or low, ma’am?’
Marcia, who was sitting before the mirror in a lace camisole, fidgeted
impatiently.
‘Oh, do it any way you please, Granton, only hurry—low, I think. That
will look best with my gown. But do be quick about it. I have to go
downstairs.’
‘There’s plenty of time,’ replied the maid, imperturbably. ‘But I would
be a little faster if you would kindly sit still.’
‘Very well, Granton; I won’t move for five minute. I’m really getting
excited, though; and I didn’t care a bit for the party until it began.’
‘Yes, ma’am. If you’ll just turn your head a little more this way. It’s
very early.’
‘I know, but I have to go down and be sure that Pietro understands
about the lights. He’s so stupid, he has to be watched every minute.
And, Granton, as soon as you get through with Mrs. Copley please go and
help Bianca dress Miss Royston. Bianca doesn’t know anything more about
fixing hair than a rabbit.’
Granton’s silence breathed acquiescence in this statement, and under
impulse of the implied compliment she became more sprightly in her
movements as she skilfully twisted Marcia’s yellow-brown hair into a
seemingly simple coil at the nape of her neck.
For the past three days the house had been full of guests and though
Marcia had been somewhat cold in her anticipations of the time, she
found herself thoroughly enjoying it when it came. The days had been
filled with rides and drives and impromptu gaiety. Paul Dessart had
been master of the revels, and he filled the office brilliantly. He had
supplied the leaven of fun on every occasion, and had been so
thoroughly tactful that his host and hostess had gratefully blessed
him, and Marcia had cast him more than one involuntary glance of
approval. And this was her birthday and the night of the ball. All day
long she had been the centre of a congratulatory group, the recipient
of prettily worded felicitations; and she not unnaturally found it
pleasant. The afternoon train had brought still more guests from Rome,
and Villa Vivalanti’s nineteen bedrooms were none too many. Five
o’clock tea on the terrace had in itself been in the nature of a festa,
with gaily dressed groups coming and going amid the sound of laughter
and low voices; while the excitable Italian servants scurried to and
fro, placing tea-tables and carrying cups.
Marcia had been secretly disappointed that afternoon by the non-arrival
of one guest whom she had half expected—and Eleanor Royston had been
frankly so.
‘Mr. Copley,’ Eleanor had inquired of her host, as he offered her a cup
of tea, ‘where’s that friend of yours, Mr. Laurence Sybert?’
‘Quelling rioters, I presume. It’s more in his line just now than
attending balls.’
‘As if anything could be more in a diplomat’s line than attending
balls! With all the other diplomats here and off their guard, it’s just
the time to learn state secrets. And he’s the most interesting man in
Rome,’ she complained. ‘I wanted to add him to my collection.’
‘Your collection?’ Mr. Copley’s startled expression approached a stare.
‘Of interesting men,’ she explained. ‘Oh, don’t be alarmed; I don’t
scalp them. The collection is purely mental—it’s small enough, so far,
to be carried in my head. It’s merely that I am a student of human
nature and am constantly on the alert for fresh specimens. Your Mr.
Sybert is puzzling; I don’t know just how to classify him.’
‘Ah, I see! It is merely a scientific interest you take in him.’ Mr.
Copley’s tone was one of relief. ‘If I can be of any assistance with
the label—I am sure that he would feel honoured to grace your
collection.’
‘I am not so sure,’ said Marcia. ‘Wait till you hear the others, Uncle
Howard! A Kansas politician who wants to be a poet, an engineer on the
Claytons’ yacht, a Russian prince who talks seven languages and can’t
express his thoughts in any, and—who were the others, Eleanor? Oh,
yes! the blacksmith who married the maid and beats her.’
‘You don’t do them justice,’ Eleanor remonstrated, ‘Those are merely
their accidental, extrinsic qualities. That which makes them
interesting is something intrinsic.’
Mr. Copley shot her an amused glance, and drawing up a chair, sat down
beside her, prepared to argue it out.
‘The list has possibilities, Miss Royston,’ he assured her, ‘though of
course one can’t judge without knowing the gentlemen personally. With
which one, may I ask, are you going to classify Mr. Sybert?’
‘Oh, in a separate pigeonhole by himself. That is just what makes my
collection interesting.’ It was evidently a subject that she discussed
with some relish. ‘Most men, you know—you look them over and
immediately assign them to a group with a lot of others; but once in a
while you come across a man who goes entirely by himself—is what the
French call an _original_—and he is worth studying.’
Mr. Copley took out a cigarette and regarded it speculatively. ‘I see,’
he said. ‘The best study of mankind is man—and so you think Sybert a
specimen who deserves a pigeonhole by himself?’
‘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.
They turned away and sauntered toward the ilex grove.
‘There are, however, compensations,’ he went on presently. ‘Our poor
peasants do not have all the pleasures, but they do not have all the
pains, either. There are a great many girls in Castel Vivalanti who
will never have a birthday ball’—he glanced from the lighted villa
behind them to the glowing vista in front, the green stretch of the
ilex walk with the shimmering fountain at the end—‘whose lives will be
very bare, indeed. They will work and eat and sleep, and love and
perhaps hate, and that is all. You have many other pleasures which they
could never understand. You enjoy the _Egoist_, for instance. But
also’—he paused—‘you can suffer many things they cannot understand.
You are an individual, while they are merely human beings. Gervasio’s
stepmother married a husband, and doubtless loved him very much and
cried for him a week after he was dead. Then she married another, and
saw no difference between him and the first. She may have to work hard,
and she may be hungry sometimes, but she will escape the worst
suffering in life, which you, with all your privileges, may not escape,
Marcia.’
‘One would rather not escape it,’ she answered. ‘I should rather feel
what there is to feel.’
‘Ah!’ he breathed, ‘so should we all! And these poor devils of
peasants, who can’t feel anything but their hunger and weariness, lose
the most of life. They are not even human beings; they are merely
beasts of burden, hard-working, patient, unthinking oxen, who go the
way they are driven, not dreaming of their strength. That is the
unfairness; that is where society owes them a debt; they have no chance
to develop. However,’ he broke off with a short laugh, ‘it’s not the
time to bother you with other people’s troubles—on your birthday
night. We will hope, after all, that you may not have any very grave
ones of your own.’
They had reached the fountain and they paused. They were alone in a
fairy grove, with a nightingale pouring out his soul in the branches
above their heads. Marcia stood looking down the dim, green alley they
had come by, breathing deeply. She knew that Sybert’s eyes were on her,
and slowly she raised her head and looked up in his face. For a moment
they stood in silence; then, as the sound of carriage wheels reached
them from the avenue, she started and turned away.
‘The people are beginning to come. I am afraid that Aunt Katherine will
be wondering where I am,’ she said in a voice that trembled slightly.
Sybert followed her in silence.
Some one had once said to her that Sybert’s silences meant more than
other men’s words, and as they turned back she tried to think who it
had been. Ah—she remembered! It was the contessa.