It was some fair dream that would be gone too soon, he told himself, as
they drove rapidly through the twilight streets, down from the Pincio
and up the long slope of the Quirinal. They came to a stop in the gray
courtyard of a palazzo, and ascended in a sleepy elevator to the fifth
floor. Emerging, they encountered a tall man who was turning away
from the Countess' door, which he had just closed. The landing was not
lighted, and for a moment he failed to see the American following Madame
de Vaurigard.
“Eow, it's you, is it,” he said informally. “Waitin' a devil of a long
time for you. I've gawt a message for you. _He's_ comin'. He writes that
Cooley--”
_“Attention!”_ she interrupted under her breath, and, stepping forward
quickly, touched the bell. “I have brought a frien' of our dear, droll
Cooley with me to tea. Monsieur Mellin, you mus' make acquaintance with
Monsieur Sneyd. He is English, but we shall forgive him because he is a
such ole frien' of mine.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mellin. “Remember seeing you on the boat, running across
the pond.”
“Yes, ev coss,” responded Mr. Sneyd cordially. “I wawsn't so fawchnit
as to meet you, but dyuh eold Cooley's talked ev you often. Heop I sh'll
see maw of you hyuh.”
A very trim, very intelligent-looking maid opened the door, and the
two men followed Madame de Vaurigard into a square hall, hung with
tapestries and lit by two candles of a Brobdingnagian species Mellin had
heretofore seen only in cathedrals. Here Mr. Sneyd paused.
“I weon't be bawthring you,” he said. “Just a wad with you, Cantess, and
I'm off.”
The intelligent-looking maid drew back some heavy curtains leading to a
salon beyond the hall, and her mistress smiled brightly at Mellin.
“I shall keep him to jus' his one word,” she said, as the young man
passed between the curtains.
It was a nobly proportioned room that he entered, so large that, in
spite of the amount of old furniture it contained, the first impression
it gave was one of spaciousness. Panels of carved and blackened wood
lined the walls higher than his head; above them, Spanish leather
gleamed here and there with flickerings of red and gilt, reflecting
dimly a small but brisk wood fire which crackled in a carved stone
fireplace. His feet slipped on the floor of polished tiles and wandered
from silky rugs to lose themselves in great black bear skins as in
unmown sward. He went from the portrait of a “cinquecento” cardinal to
a splendid tryptich set over a Gothic chest, from a cabinet sheltering
a collection of old glass to an Annunciation by an unknown Primitive.
He told himself that this was a “room in a book,” and became dreamily
assured that he was a man in a book. Finally he stumbled upon something
almost grotesquely out of place: a large, new, perfectly-appointed
card-table with a sliding top, a smooth, thick, green cover and patent
compartments.
He halted before this incongruity, regarding it with astonishment.
Then a light laugh rippled behind him, and he turned to find Madame de
Vaurigard seated in a big red Venetian chair by the fire.
She wore a black lace dress, almost severe in fashion, which gracefully
emphasized her slenderness; and she sat with her knees crossed, the
firelight twinkling on the beads of her slipper, on her silken instep,
and flashing again from the rings upon the slender fingers she had
clasped about her knee.
She had lit a thin, long Russian cigarette.
“You see?” she laughed. “I mus' keep up with the time. I mus' do
somesing to hold my frien's about me. Even the ladies like to play
now--that breedge w'ich is so tiresome--they play, play, play! And
you--you Americans, you refuse to endure us if we do not let you play.
So for my frien's when they come to my house--if they wish it, there
is that foolish little table. I fear”--she concluded with a bewitching
affectation of sadness--“they prefer that to talkin' wiz me.”
“You know that couldn't be so, _Comtesse_,” he said. “I would rather
talk to you than--than--”
“Ah, yes, you say so, Monsieur!” She looked at him gravely; a little
sigh seemed to breathe upon her lips; she leaned forward nearer the
fire, her face wistful in the thin, rosy light, and it seemed to him he
had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
He came across to her and sat upon a stool at her feet. “On my soul,” he
began huskily, “I swear--”
She laid her finger on her lips, shaking her head gently; and he was
silent, while the intelligent maid--at that moment entering--arranged a
tea-table and departed.
“American an' Russian, they are the worse,” said the Countess
thoughtfully, as she served him with a generous cup, laced with rum,
“but the American he is the bes' to play _wiz_.” Mellin found her
irresistible when she said “wiz.”
“Why is that?”
“Oh, the Russian play high, yes--but the American”--she laughed
delightedly and stretched her arms wide--“he make' it all a joke! He is
beeg like his beeg country. If he win or lose, he don' care! Ah, I mus'
tell you of my great American frien', that Honor-able Chanlair Pedlow,
who is comin' to Rome. You have heard of Honor-able Chanlair Pedlow in
America?”
“I remember hearing that name.”
“Ah, I shall make you know him. He is a man of distinction; he did sit
in your Chamber of Deputies--what you call it?--yes, your Con-gress. He
is funny, eccentric--always he roar like a lion--Boum!--but so simple,
so good, a man of such fine heart--so lovable!”
“I'll be glad to meet him,” said Mellin coldly.
“An', oh, yes, I almos' forget to tell you,” she went on, “your frien',
that dear Cooley, he is on his way from Monte Carlo in his automobile. I
have a note from him to-day.”
“Good sort of fellow, little Cooley, in his way,” remarked her companion
graciously. “Not especially intellectual or that, you know. His father
was a manufacturer chap, I believe, or something of the sort. I suppose
you saw a lot of him in Paris?”
“Eh, I thought he is dead!” cried Madame de Vaurigard.
“The father is. I mean, little Cooley.”
“Oh, yes,” she laughed softly. “We had some gay times, a little party
of us. We shall be happy here, too; you will see. I mus' make a little
dinner very soon, but not unless you will come. You will?”
“Do you want me very much?”
He placed his empty cup on the table and leaned closer to her, smiling.
She did not smile in response; instead, her eyes fell and there was the
faintest, pathetic quiver of her lower lip.
“Already you know that,” she said in a low voice.
She rose quickly, turned away from him and walked across the room to the
curtains which opened upon the hall. One of these she drew back.
“My frien', you mus' go now,” she said in the same low voice. “To-morrow
I will see you again. Come at four an' you shall drive with me--but
not--not more--_now_. Please!”
She stood waiting, not looking at him, but with head bent and eyes
veiled. As he came near she put out a limp hand. He held it for a few
seconds of distinctly emotional silence, then strode swiftly into the
hall.
She immediately let the curtain fall behind him, and as he got his
hat and coat he heard her catch her breath sharply with a sound like a
little sob.
Dazed with glory, he returned to the hotel. In the lobby he approached
the glittering concierge and said firmly:
“What is the Salone Margherita? Cam you get me a box there to-night?”