The Elder stood at the gate of the _villino_. It was a post familiar
enough to him, and the particular object upon which his eyes rested
was scarcely less so. But the juxtaposition was unusual. For the panel
before him was embellished by that replica of Benvenuto’s knocker, to
which reference has already so frequently been made. What manner of
omen could it be? He studied the knocker. He studied the door. And
finally it occurred to him to apply the one with some vehemence to the
other.
In response to this overture a flip-flap of slippers clattered across
the flagging within, and the door was opened by Gilda in person. Again
the Elder wondered. For hitherto the door, obeying some secret impulse,
had betrayed no hint of human agency. The maid, however, left him no
time to parley:
“_O signor marchese!_ The ladies have gone to America. Did he forget?”
“_Diavolo!_” ejaculated that personage.
“Yes, about a quarter of an hour ago. They said they told him they were
going, but in case he forgot and came again--the _marchese_ has made
such a habit!--to let him know they were leaving by the Genoa train, at
eleven. There is still time.”
The Elder looked at his watch.
“Is there still time?” he uttered slowly. He stared at the sea god who
so splendidly brandished in his own image the trident before his eyes.
“If the _marchese_ hastens,” replied the interested Gilda. “My
_padrona_----”
But the Elder quenched her with a silver _lira_ and strode away. Even
after he had ordered a cabman to hurry him to the station, though,
he did not really believe he would go in. Indeed, by the time he
reached the station he was quite sure he would not go in. That would
be too----Yet he jumped out of the carriage before it stopped, and ran
through to the platform. He would just find out! And he charged into
the arms of the Younger, who was strolling up and down with a cigarette.
“It is true, eh?” asked the Elder, collecting himself against this new
surprise. For the moment it escaped him that he and the Younger were no
longer on the best of terms.
“It looks like it,” replied the other. “Shall I take you to the
compartment?”
The Elder did not answer. But he followed his companion, replacing his
monocle on the way; and presently, in all truth, he beheld Susannah and
The General enthroned amid mountains of luggage.
“Why, we began to think you weren’t coming!” cried Susannah, smiling
out of the window. “That would have been a nice way to treat us!”
The Elder made an extravagant bow.
“If you give no hint----”
Susannah laughed. “No one ever got so many hints. We have told you
every day. We told you yesterday.”
The Elder passed it off with a shrug.
“How soon may we expect you back?”
Susannah shook her finger out of the window.
“Never! We are through with Europe.”
“O!” The marquis laughed. “And how about America?”
“Dear me!” cried Susannah. “There’s no comparison!”
“So I have understood!” exclaimed the Elder gaily, glancing at the
Younger.
“I don’t think you understand well enough, though,” objected Susannah.
“You don’t seem to understand that, after all, people make more
difference than things. And the people there are different. It isn’t
just that they don’t act like monkeys the first time they see you on
the beach. It isn’t that they aren’t taken in so easily, and that they
don’t make such fools of themselves. They are nicer. They are kinder.
They have some decency and some self-respect.”
She quite lost her climaxes in her haste to get it out, and in her
smile there was something very pointed.
As for the marquis, he again made a profound bow.
“They are very superior beings, I am sure. But you seem to have been
some time in coming to this conclusion.”
Susannah’s head dropped a little to one side.
“Not so long as you might think,” she said. “I reached it at Viareggio,
last summer.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the marquis. “And may one ask how, with such a
weight upon your mind, you succeeded in deferring your departure so
long?”
“Why, yes! And what is more, I will tell you. I was waiting to furnish
the _villino_. It wasn’t quite complete, you know, until the other day.
Did I tell you,” she asked, turning to the Younger, “that the marquis
had given me the loveliest little gold salt cellars?”
“Your furniture will be much admired in your American home,” remarked
the Elder pleasantly.
“O dear no!” cried Susannah. “I wouldn’t have anything in my American
home to remind me of Europe. We have left the _villino_, just as it
stands, to the new tenant.”
“Ah! You must have got something very handsome for so completely
equipped an establishment--even to gold salt cellars,” exclaimed the
Elder, with an amiable smile.
“Perhaps I might have,” replied Susannah; “but the new tenant could
scarcely have afforded that.”
“And may I ask who the happy man may be?” inquired the Elder, with
perhaps a shade of interest.
“O, it isn’t a man at all,” said Susannah. “It’s our maid, you
know--Gilda. She has been so good--the one good person in Europe, I
believe. We bought the house for her, and took the trouble to have a
complete inventory put in the deed--down to the door-knockers--so that
there might be no misunderstanding about it.”
Whatever the Elder might have had for that was spoiled by the guard,
who hurried toward them, locking the compartment doors. Turning to the
Younger the Elder took his arm.
“Well,” he said, “it seems to me that we are forsaken!”
He was admirable. He had never been so admirable. The Younger, however,
gently disengaged himself.
“Pardon me. I am sorry to seem rude, but--I am going, too.”
And he made for the door before the guard should lock it.
“_Par-ten-za!_” shouted that functionary, with energy.
The two young people stood together at the window, looking down at the
Elder. For an instant the Younger’s heart smote him. But something from
the eyes nearer his own hardened him again to the cruelty of youth.
“O, by the way,” he called, as the train jolted into motion: “Don’t
forget! You owe me, you know, a thousand francs!”