'I think it's lovely,' said Lucy in an embarrassed voice. 'And I just don't
know how to thank you--indeed I don't.'
She was standing inside the door of Mrs. Burgoyne's room, arrayed in the
white crepe gown with the touches of pale green and vivid black that
Eleanor had designed for her. Its flowing elegance made her positively a
stranger to herself. The two maids moreover who had attired her had been
intent upon a complete, an indisputable perfection. Her hat had been
carried off and retrimmed, her white gloves, her dainty parasol, the bunch
of roses at her belt--everything had been thought for; she had been allowed
a voice in nothing. And the result was extraordinary. The day before
she had been still a mere fresh-cheeked illustration of those 'moeurs
de province' which are to be found all over the world, in Burgundy and
Yorkshire no less and no more than in Vermont; to-day she had become what
others copy, the best of its kind--the 'fleeting flower' that 'blooms
for one day at the summit'--as the maids would no doubt have expressed
themselves, had they been acquainted with the works of Mr. Clough.
And thanks to that pliancy of her race, which Miss Manisty had discovered,
although she was shy in these new trappings, she was not awkward. She was
assimilating her new frocks, as she had already assimilated so many other
things, during her weeks at the villa--points of manner, of speech, of
mental perspective. Unconsciously she copied Mrs. Burgoyne's movements
and voice; she was learning to understand Manisty's paradoxes, and Aunt
Pattie's small weaknesses. She was less raw, evidently; yet not less
individual. Her provincialisms were dropping away; her character, perhaps,
was only emerging.
'Are you pleased with it?' she said timidly, as Mrs. Burgoyne bade her come
in, and she advanced towards that lady, who was putting on her own hat
before the glass.
Eleanor, with uplifted arms, turned and smiled.--
'Charming! You do one credit!--Is Aunt Pattie better?'
Lucy was conscious of a momentary chill. Mrs. Burgoyne had been so kind
and friendly during the whole planning and making of this dress, the girl,
perhaps, had inevitably expected a keener interest in its completion.
She answered in some discomfort:--
'I am afraid Miss Manisty's not coming. I saw Benson just now. Her headache
is still so bad.'
'Ah!'--said Eleanor, absently, rummaging among her gloves; 'this scirocco
weather doesn't suit her.'
Lucy fidgetted a little as she stood by the dressing-table, took up one
knick-knack after another and put it down. At last she said--
'Do you mind my asking you a question?'
Mrs. Burgoyne turned in surprise.
'By all means!--What can I do?'
'Do you mind telling me whether you think I ought to stay on here? Miss
Manisty is so kind--she wants me to stay till you leave, and then go to
Vallombrosa with you--next month. But--'
'Why "but"?'--said Mrs. Burgoyne, briskly, still in quest of rings,
handkerchief, and fan,--'unless you are quite tired of us.'
The girl smiled. 'I couldn't be that. But--I think you'll be tired of me!
And I've heard from the Porters of a quiet pension in Florence, where some
friends of theirs will be staying till the middle of June. They would let
me join them, till the Porters are ready for me.'
There was just a moment's pause before Eleanor said--
'Aunt Pattie would be very sorry. I know she counts on your going with her
to Vallombrosa. I must go home by the beginning of June, and I believe Mr.
Manisty goes to Paris.'
'And the book?' Lucy could not help saying, and then wished vehemently that
she had left the question alone.
'I don't understand'--said Mrs. Burgoyne, stooping to look for her
walking-shoes.
'I didn't--I didn't know whether it was still to be finished by the
summer?'
'No one knows,--certainly not the author! But it doesn't concern me in the
least.'
'How can it be finished without you?' said Lucy wondering. Again she could
not restrain the spirit of eager championship which had arisen in her mind
of late; though she was tremulously uncertain as to how far she might
express it.
Certainly Mrs. Burgoyne showed a slight stiffening of manner.
'It will have to get finished without me, I'm afraid. Luckily I'm not
wanted; but if I were, I shall have no time for anything but my father this
summer.'
Lucy was silent. Mrs. Burgoyne finished tying her shoes, then rose, and
said lightly--
'Besides--poor book! It wanted a change badly. So did I.--Now Mr. Neal will
see it through.'
* * * * *
Lucy went to say good-bye to Aunt Pattie before starting. Eleanor, left
alone, stood a moment, thoughtful, beside the dressing-table.
'She is sorry for me!' she said to herself, with a sudden, passionate
movement.
This was the Nemi day--the day of festival, planned a fortnight before, to
celebrate the end, the happy end of the book. It was to have been Eleanor's
special day--the sign and seal of that good fortune she had brought her
cousin and his work.
And now?--Why were they going? Eleanor hardly knew. She had tried to stop
it. But Reggie Brooklyn had been asked, and the Ambassador's daughter. And
Vanbrugh Neal had a fancy to see Nemi. Manisty, who had forgotten all that
the day was once to signify, had resigned himself to the expedition--he who
hated expeditions!--' because Neal wanted it.' There had not been a word
said about it during the last few days that had not brought gall and wound
to Eleanor. She, who thought she knew all that male selfishness was capable
of, was yet surprised and pricked anew, hour after hour, by Manisty's
casual sayings and assumptions.
It was like some gourd-growth in the night--the rise of this entangling
barrier between herself and him. She knew that some of it came from those
secret superstitions and fancies about himself and his work which she had
often detected in him. If a companion or a place, even a particular table
or pen had brought him luck, he would recur to them and repeat them with
eagerness. But once prove to him the contrary, and she had seen him drop
friend and pen with equal decision.
And as far as she could gather--as far as he would discuss the matter at
all--it was precisely with regard to those portions of the book where her
influence upon it had been strongest, that the difficulties put forward by
Mr. Neal had arisen.
Her lip quivered. She had little or no personal conceit. Very likely Mr.
Neal's criticisms were altogether just, and she had counselled wrongly.
When she thought of the old days of happy consultation, of that vibrating
sympathy of thought which had arisen between them, glorifying the winter
days in Rome, of the thousand signs in him of a deep, personal gratitude
and affection--
Vanished!--vanished! The soreness of heart she carried about with
her, proudly concealed, had the gnawing constancy of physical pain.
While he!--Nothing seemed to her more amazing than the lapses in mere
gentlemanliness that Manisty could allow himself. He was capable on
occasion of all that was most refined and tender in feeling. But once jar
that central egotism of his, and he could behave incredibly! Through the
small actions and omissions of every day, he could express, if he chose, a
hardness of soul before which the woman shuddered.
Did he in truth mean her to understand, not only that she had been an
intruder, and an unlucky one, upon his work and his intellectual life, but
that any dearer hopes she might have based upon their comradeship were to
be once for all abandoned? She stood there, lost in a sudden tumult of
passionate pride and misery, which was crossed every now and then by a
strange and bitter wonder.
Each of us carries about with him a certain mental image of
himself--typical, characteristic--as we suppose; draped at any rate to our
fancy; round which we group the incidents of life. Eleanor saw herself
always as the proud woman; it is a guise in which we are none of us loth
to masquerade. Haughtily dumb and patient during her married years; proud
morally, socially, intellectually; finding in this stiffening of the self
her only defence against the ugly realities of daily life. Proud too in her
loneliness and grief--proud of her very grief, of her very capacity for
suffering, of all the delicate shades of thought and sorrow which furnished
the matter of her secret life, lived without a sign beside the old father
whose coarser and commoner pride took such small account of hers!
And now--she seemed to herself to be already drinking humiliation, and
foreseeing ever deeper draughts of it to come. She, who had never begged
for anything, was in the mood to see her whole existence as a refused
petition, a rejected gift. She had offered Edward Manisty her all of
sympathy and intelligence, and he was throwing it back lightly, inexorably
upon her hands. Her thin cheek burnt; but it was the truth. She annoyed and
wearied him; and he had shaken her off; her, Eleanor Burgoyne! She did not
know herself. Her inmost sense of identity was shaken.
She leant her head an instant against the frame of the open window, closing
her tired eyes upon the great Campagna below her. A surge of rebellious
will passed through her. Always submission, patience, silence,--till now!
But there are moments when a woman must rouse herself, and fight--must not
accept, but make, her fate.
Jealous! Was that last heat and ignominy of the soul to be hers too? She
was to find it a threat and offence that he should spend some of the
evenings that now went so heavily, talking with this girl,--this nice
simple girl, whom she had herself bade him cultivate, whom she had herself
brought into notice, rubbing off her angles,--drilling her into beauty? The
very notion was madness and absurdity. It degraded her in her own eyes. It
was the measure of her own self-ignorance. She--resign him at the first
threat of another claim! The passionate life of her own heart amazed and
stunned her.
The clock in the salon struck. She started, and went to straighten her veil
at the glass. What would the afternoon bring her? Something it should bring
her. The Nemi days of the winter were shrined in memory--each with its
halo. Let her put out her full strength again, and now, before it was too
late--before he had slipped too far away from her.
The poor heart beat hotly against the lace of her dress. What did she
intend or hope for? She only knew that this might be one of her last
chances with him--that the days were running out--and the moment of
separation approached. Her whole nature was athirst, desperately athirst
for she knew not what. Yet something told her that among these ups and
downs of daily temper and fortune there lay strewn for her the last chances
of her life.
* * * * *
'Please, ma'am, will you go in for a moment to Miss Manisty?'
The voice was Benson's, who had waylaid Mrs. Burgoyne in the salon.
Eleanor obeyed.
From the shadows of her dark room Aunt Pattie raised a wan face.
'Eleanor!--what do you think?'--
Eleanor ran to her. Miss Manisty handed her a telegram which read as
follows--
'Your letter arrived too late to alter arrangements. Coming to-morrow--two
or three nights--discuss plans.--ALICE.'
Eleanor let her hand drop, and the two ladies looked at each other in
dismay.
'But you told her you couldn't receive her here?'
'Several times over. Edward will be in despair. How are we to have her
here with Miss Foster? Her behaviour the last two months has been too
extraordinary.'
Aunt Pattie fell back a languid little heap upon her pillows. Eleanor
looked almost equally disconcerted.
'Have you told Edward?'
'No,' said Aunt Pattie miserably, raising a hand to her aching head, as
though to excuse her lack of courage.
'Shall I tell him?'
'It's too bad to put such things on you.'
'No, not at all. But I won't tell him now. It would spoil the day. Some
time before the evening.'
Aunt Pattie showed an aspect of relief.
'Do whatever you think best. It's very good of you--'
'Not at all. Dear Aunt Pattie!--lie still. By the way--has she anyone with
her?'
'Only her maid--the one person who can manage her at all. That poor lady,
you know, who tried to be companion, gave it up some time ago. Where shall
we put her?'
'There are the two east rooms. Shall I tell Andreina to get them ready?'
Aunt Pattie acquiesced, with a sound rather like a groan.
'There is no chance still of stopping her?' said Eleanor, moving away.
'The telegram gives no address but Orte station,' said Aunt Pattie wearily;
'she must have sent it on her journey.'
'Then we must be prepared. Don't fret--dear Aunt Pattie!--we'll help you
through.'
Eleanor stood a moment in the salon, thinking.
Unlucky! Manisty's eccentric and unmanageable sister had been for many
years the secret burden of his life and Aunt Pattie's. Eleanor had been a
witness of the annoyance and depression with which he had learnt during the
winter that she was in Italy. She knew something of the efforts that had
been made to keep her away from the villa.--
He would be furiously helpless and miserable under the
infliction.--Somehow, her spirits rose.--
She went to the door of the salon, and heard the carriage drive up that was
to take them to Nemi. Across Manisty's room, she saw himself on the balcony
lounging and smoking till the ladies should appear. The blue lake with its
green shores sparkled beyond him. The day was brightening. Certainly--let
the bad news wait!
* * * * *
As they drove along the Galleria di Sotto, Manisty seemed to be
preoccupied. The carriage had interrupted him in the midst of reading a
long letter which he still held crumpled in his hand.
At last he said abruptly to Eleanor--'Benecke's last chance is up. He is
summoned to submit next week at latest.'
'He tells you so?'
'Yes. He writes me a heart-broken letter.'
'Poor, poor fellow! It's all the Jesuits' doing. Mr. Neal told me the whole
story.'
'Oh! it's tyranny of course. And the book's only a fraction of the
truth,--a little Darwinian yeast leavening a lump of theology. But they're
quite right. They can't help it.'
Eleanor looked at Lucy Foster and laughed.
'Dangerous to say those things before Miss Foster.'
'Does Miss Foster know anything about it?'--he said coolly.
Lucy hastily disclaimed any knowledge of Father Benecke and his affairs.
'They're very simple'--said Manisty. 'Father Benecke is a priest, but also
a Professor. He published last year a rather Liberal book--very mildly
liberal--some evolution--some Biblical criticism--just a touch! And a good
deal of protest against the way in which the Jesuits are ruining Catholic
University education in Germany. Lord! more than enough. They put his book
on the Index within a month; he has had a year's grace to submit in; and
now, if the submission is not made within a week or so, he will be first
suspended, and then--excommunicated.'
'Who's "they"? 'said Lucy.
'Oh! the Congregation of the Index--or the people who set them on.'
'Is the book a bad book?'
'Quite the contrary.'
'And you're pleased?'
'I think the Papacy is keeping up discipline--and is not likely to go under
just yet.'
He turned to her with his teasing laugh and was suddenly conscious of her
new elegance. Where was the 'Sunday school teacher'? Transformed!--in five
weeks--into this vision that was sitting opposite to him? Really, women
were too wonderful! His male sense felt a kind of scorn for the plasticity
of the sex.
'He has asked your opinion?' said Lucy, pursuing the subject.
'Yes. I told him the book was excellent--and his condemnation certain.'
Lucy bit her lip.
'Who did it?'
'The Jesuits--probably.'
'And you defend them?'
'Of course!--They're the only gentlemen in Europe who thoroughly understand
their own business.'
'What a business!' said Lucy, breathing quick.--'To rush on every little
bit of truth they see and stamp it out!'
'Like any other dangerous firework,--your simile is excellent.'
'Dangerous!' She threw back her head.--'To the blind and the cripples.'
'Who are the larger half of mankind. Precisely.'
She hesitated, then could not restrain herself.
'But _you're_ not concerned?'
'I? Oh dear no. I can be trusted with fireworks. Besides I'm not a
Catholic.'
'Is that fair?--to stand outside slavery--and praise it?'
'Why not?--if it suits my purpose?'
The girl was silent. Manisty glanced at Eleanor; she caught the mischievous
laugh in his eyes, and lightly returned it. It was his old comrade's look,
come back. A warmer, more vital life stirred suddenly through all her
veins; the slight and languid figure drew itself erect; her senses told
her, hurriedly, for the first time that the May sun, the rapidly freshening
air, and the quick movement of the carriage were all physically delightful.
How fast, indeed, the spring was conquering the hills! As they passed over
the great viaduct at Aricia, the thick Chigi woods to the left masked the
deep ravine in torrents of lightest foamiest green; and over the vast plain
to the right, stretching to Ardea, Lanuvium and the sea, the power of the
reawakening earth, like a shuttle in the loom, was weaving day by day its
web of colour and growth, the ever brightening pattern of crop, and grass
and vine. The beggars tormented them on the approach to Genzano, as they
tormented of old Horace and Mæcenas; and presently the long falling street
of the town, with its multitudes of short, wiry, brown-faced folk, its
clatter of children and mules, its barbers and wine shops, brought them in
sight again of the emerald-green Campagna, and the shiny hazes over the
sea. In front rose the tower-topped hill of Monte Giove, marking the site
of Corioli; and just as they turned towards Nemi the Appian Way ran across
their path. Overhead, a marvellous sky with scudding veils of white cloud.
The blur and blight of the scirocco had vanished without rain, under
a change of wind. An all-blessing, all-penetrating sun poured upon the
stirring earth. Everywhere fragments and ruins--ghosts of the great
past--yet engulfed, as it were, and engarlanded by the active and fertile
present.
And now they were to follow the high ridge above the deep-sunk lake, toward
Nemi on its farther side--Nemi with its Orsini tower, grim and tall, rising
on its fortress rock, high over the lake and what was once the thick grove
or 'Nemus' of the Goddess, mantling the proud white of her inviolate
temple.
'Look!'--said Eleanor, touching Lucy's hand. 'There's the niched wall--and
the platform of the temple.'
And Lucy, bending eager brows, saw across the lake a line of great
recesses, overgrown and shadowy against the steep slopes or cliffs of the
crater, and in front of them a flat space, with one farm-shed upon it.
In the crater-wall, just behind and above the temple-site, was a black
vertical cleft. Eleanor pointed it out to Manisty.
'Do you remember we never explored it? But the spring must be
there?--Egeria's spring?'
Manisty lazily said he didn't know.
'Don't imagine you will be let off,' said Eleanor, laughing. 'We have
settled every other point at Nemi. This is left for to-day. It will make a
scramble after tea.'
'You will find it further than you think,' said Manisty, measuring the
distance.
'So it was somewhere on that terrace he died--poor priest!'--said Lucy,
musing.
Manisty, who was walking beside the carriage, turned towards her. Her
little speech flattered him. But he laughed.
'I wonder how much it was worth--that place--in hard cash,' he said, drily.
'No doubt that was the secret of it.'
Lucy smiled--unwillingly. They were mounting a charming road high above the
lake. Stretching between them and the lake were steep olive gardens and
vineyards; above them light half-fledged woods climbed to the sky. In the
vineyards the fresh red-brown earth shone amid the endless regiments of
vines, just breaking into leaf; daisies glittered under the olives; and
below, on a mid-way crag, a great wild-cherry, sun-touched, flung its
boughs and blossoms, a dazzling pearly glory, over the dark blue hollow of
the lake.
And on the farther side, the high, scooped-out wall of the crater rose
rich and dark above the temple-site. How white--_white_--it must have
shone!--thought Lucy. Her imagination had been caught by the priest's
story. She saw Nemi for the first time as one who had seen it before.
Timidly she looked at the man walking beside the carriage. Strange! She no
longer disliked him as she had done, no longer felt it impossible that he
should have written the earlier book which had been so dear to her. Was it
that she had seen him chastened and depressed of late--had realised the
comparative harmlessness of his vanity, the kindness and docility he could
show to a friend? Ah no!--if he had been kind for one friend, he had been
difficult and ungrateful for another. The thinness of Eleanor's cheek, the
hollowness of her blue eye accused him. But even here the girl's inner mind
had begun to doubt and demur. After all did she know much--or anything--of
their real relation?
Certainly this afternoon he was a delightful companion. That phrase which
Vanbrugh Neal had applied to him in Lucy's hearing, which had seemed to her
so absurd, began after all to fit. He was _bon enfant_ both to Eleanor and
to her on this golden afternoon. He remembered Eleanor's love for broom and
brought her bunches of it from the steep banks; he made affectionate mock
of Neal's old-maidish ways; he threw himself with ejaculations, joyous,
paradoxical, violent, on the unfolding beauty of the lake and the spring;
and throughout he made them feel his presence as something warmly strong
and human, for all his provoking defects, and that element of the
uncommunicated and unexplained which was always to be felt in him. Eleanor
began to look happier and younger than she had looked for days. And Lucy
wondered why the long ascent to Nemi was so delightful; why the scirocco
seemed to have gone from the air, leaving so purpureal and divine a light
on mountain and lake and distance.
* * * * *
When they arrived at Nemi, Manisty as usual showed that he knew nothing of
the practical arrangements of the day, which were always made for him by
other people.
'_What_ am I to do with these?' he said, throwing his hands in despair
towards the tea-baskets in the carriage.--'We can't drive beyond this--And
how are we to meet the others?--when do they come?--why aren't they here?'
He turned with peremptory impatience to Eleanor. She laid a calming hand
upon his arm, pointing to the crowd of peasant folk from the little town
that had already gathered round the carriage.
'Get two of those boys to carry the baskets. We are to meet the others at
the temple. They come by the path from Genzano.'
Manisty's brow cleared at once like a child's. He went into the crowd,
chattering his easy Italian, and laid hands on two boys, one of whom was
straight and lithe and handsome as a young Bacchus, and bore the noble name
of Aristodemo. Then, followed by a horde of begging children which had
to be shaken off by degrees, they began the descent of the steep cliff
on which Nemi stands. The path zigzagged downwards, and as they followed
it, they came upon files of peasant women ascending, all bearing on their
kerchiefed heads great flat baskets of those small wood-strawberries, or
_fragole_, which are the chief crop of Nemi and its fields.
The handsome women, the splendid red of the fruit and the scent which it
shed along the path, the rich May light upon the fertile earth and its
spray of leaf and blossom, the sense of growth and ferment and pushing life
everywhere--these things made Lucy's spirits dance within her. She hung
back with the two boys, shyly practising her Italian upon them, while
Eleanor and Manisty walked ahead.
But Manisty did not forget her. Half-way down the path, he turned back to
look at her, and saw that she was carrying a light waterproof, which aunt
Pattie had forced upon her lest the scirocco should end in rain. He stopped
and demanded it. Lucy resisted.
'I _can_ carry that,' he urged impatiently; 'it isn't baskets.'
'You _could_ carry those,' she said laughing.
'Not in a world that grows boys and sixpences. But I want that cloak.
Please!'
The tone was imperious and she yielded. He hurried on to join Eleanor,
carrying the cloak with his usual awkwardness, and often trailing it in
the dust. Lucy, who was very neat and precise in all her personal ways,
suffered at the sight, and wished she had stood firm. But to be waited on
and remembered by him was not a disagreeable experience; perhaps because it
was still such a new and surprising one.
Presently they were on the level of the lake, and their boys guided them
through a narrow and stony by-path, to the site of the temple, or as the
peasant calls it the 'Giardino del Lago.'
It is a flat oblong space, with a two-storied farm building--part of it
showing brickwork of the early Empire--standing upon it. To north and east
runs the niched wall in which, deep under accumulations of soil, Lord
Savile found the great Tiberius, and those lost portrait busts which had
been waiting there through the centuries till the pick and spade of an
Englishman should release them. As to the temple walls which the English
lord uncovered, the trenches that he dug, and the sacrificial altar that he
laid bare--the land, their best guardian, has taken them back into itself.
The strawberries grow all over them; only strange billows and depressions
in the soil make the visitor pause and wonder. The earth seems to say to
him--'Here indeed are secrets and treasures--but not for you! I have been
robbed enough. The dead are mine. Leave them in my breast. And you!--go
your ways in the sun!'
They made their way across the strawberry fields, looking for the friends
who were to join them--Reggie Brooklyn, Mr. Neal, and the two ladies. There
was no sign of them whatever. Yet, according to time and trains, they
should have been on the spot, waiting.
'Annoying!' said Manisty, with his ready irritability. 'Reggie might really
have managed better.--Who's this fellow?'
It was the padrone or tenant of the Giardino, who came up and parleyed with
them. Yes, 'Vostra Eccellenza' might put down their baskets and make their
tea. He pointed to a bench behind the shed. The _forestieri_ came every
day; he turned away in indifference.
Meanwhile the girls and women gathering among the strawberries, raised
themselves to look at the party, flashing their white teeth at Aristodemo,
who was evidently a wit among them. They flung him gibes as he passed,
to which he replied disdainfully. A group of girls who had been singing
together, turned round upon him, 'chaffing' him with shrill voices and
outstretched necks, like a flock of young cackling geese, while he, holding
himself erect, threw them back flinty words and glances, hitting at every
stroke, striding past them with the port of a young king. Then they broke
into a song which they could hardly sing for laughing--about a lover who
had been jilted by his mistress. Aristodemo turned a deaf ear, but the
mocking song, sung by the harsh Italian voices, seemed to fill the hollow
of the lake and echoed from the steep side of the crater. The afternoon
sun, striking from the ridge of Genzano, filled the rich tangled cup, and
threw its shafts into the hollows of the temple wall. Lucy standing still
under the heat and looking round her, felt herself steeped and bathed in
Italy. Her New England reserve betrayed almost nothing; but underneath,
there was a young passionate heart, thrilling to nature and the spring,
conscious too of a sort of fate in these delicious hours, that were so much
sharper and full of meaning than any her small experience had yet known.
She walked on to look at the niched wall, while Manisty and Eleanor
parleyed with Aristodemo as to the guardianship of the tea. Presently she
heard their steps behind her, and she turned back to them eagerly.
'The boy was in that tree!'--she said to Manisty, pointing to a great olive
that flung its branches over a mass of ruin, which must once have formed
part of an outer enclosure wall beyond the statued recesses.
'Was he?' said Manisty, surprised into a smile. 'You know best.--You are
very kind to that nonsense.'
She hesitated.
'Perhaps--perhaps you don't know why I liked it so particularly. It
reminded me of things in your other book.'
'The "Letters from Palestine"?' said Manisty, half amused, half astonished.
'I suppose you wonder I should have seen it? But we read a great deal in my
country! All sorts of people read--men and women who do the roughest work
with their hands, and never spend a cent on themselves they can help. Uncle
Ben gave it me. There was a review of it in the "Springfield Republican"--I
guess they will have sent it you. But'--her voice took a shy note--'do you
remember that piece about the wedding feast at Cana--where you imagined the
people going home afterwards over the hill paths--how they talked, and what
they felt?'
'I remember something of the sort,' said Manisty--I wrote it at
Nazareth--in the spring. I'm sure it was bad!'
'I don't know why you say that?' She knit her brows a little. 'If I shut
my eyes, I seemed to be walking with them. And so with your goat-herd. I'm
certain it was that tree!' she said, pointing to the tree, her bright smile
breaking. 'And the grove was here.--And the people came running down from
the village on the cliff,'--she turned her hand towards Nemi.
Manisty was flattered again, all the more because the girl had evidently
no intention of flattery whatever, but was simply following the pleasure
of her own thought. He strolled on beside her, poking into the niches, and
talking, as the whim took him, pouring out upon her indeed some of the many
thoughts and fancies which had been generated in him by those winter visits
to Nemi that he and Eleanor had made together.
Eleanor loitered behind, looking at the strawberry gatherers.
'The next train should bring them here in about an hour,' she thought to
herself in great flatness of spirit. 'How stupid of Reggie!'
Then as she lifted her eyes, they fell upon Manisty and Lucy, strolling
along the wall together, he talking, she turning her brilliant young face
towards him, her white dress shining in the sun.
A thought--a perception--thrust itself like a lance-point through Eleanor's
mind.--She gave an inward cry--a cry of misery. The lake seemed to swim
before her.