It stands to reason that the Duchess was not a Duchess at all. She was
American by birth, from some Western state, and her first husband had
been an army man. Her second spouse--he, too, had died long ago--was
Italian. In view of his passionate devotion to the Catholic Church and
of a further payment of fifty thousand francs, he had been raised to
the rank of Papal Marquis. He died relatively young. Had his life been
spared, as it ought to have been, he might well have become a Papal
Duke in course of time. He was carried off by an accident not of his
own contriving--run over by a tramcar in Rome--before that further ducal
premium was even expected to be paid. But for this, he ought to have
died a Duke. He would have been a Duke, by this time.
His widow, taking these things into consideration, felt it her duty to
appropriate the more sonorous of the two titles open to her. Nobody
contested her claim. All her friends, on the contrary, declared that
she talked like a peeress and behaved like one; and in a world where
the few remaining authentic specimens of that class fail to fulfil
either the one or the other of these conditions, it was thought meet
and proper that somebody should be good enough to carry on, if only in
semblance, and if only in Nepenthe, the traditions of a race rapidly
approaching extinction. It was pleasant to be able to converse with a
Duchess at any hour of the day, and this one was nothing if not
accessible so long as you were fairly well clothed, had a reasonably
supply of small talk and did not profess violent anti-papal sentiments.
Some people said she dressed like a Duchess, but there was less
unanimity on this point. Her handsome oval face and towering grey hair
induced her to cultivate an antique pose, with a view to resembling "La
Pompadour." La Pompadour stood for something courtly and powdered. She
certainly dressed better and on far less money than Madame Steynlin,
whose plump figure, round sunburnt cheeks, and impulsive manner would
never have done for an old-world beauty, and who cared little what
frocks she wore, so long as somebody loved her. The Duchess had all the
aplomb of La Pompadour, but not much of her French accent. Her Italian,
too, was somewhat embryonic. That mattered little. The external
impression, the grand manner, was everything. She was not lame, though
she generally leaned on somebody's arm or a stick. It was rather a
pretty stick. She would have worm a pomander in her hair, or on a
chatelaine, if anybody had told her what a pomander was. As her friends
were unable to enlighten her--Mr. Keith even hinting that it was an
object which could not be mentioned in polite society--she contented
herself with a couple of patches.
Her rooms in that disused convent were an interminable suite of
rectangular chambers, unpretentious but solidly built, with straight
corridors running alongside. You beheld pretty pavements of
old-fashioned tiles, not overmuch furniture, one or two portraits of
the Pope, and abundance of flowers and crucifixes. The Duchess
specialized in flowers and crucifixes. Everybody, aware of her fondness
for them, gave her either the one or the other, or both. An elaborate
arrangement for tea occupied one of the rooms; there was also a cold
buffet for gentlemen--brandies and wines and iced soda-water and lobster
sandwiches and suchlike.
A many-tongued conversation filled the air with pleasant murmurs.
Various nationalities were represented, though the Russian colony was
conspicuous by its absence. The Duchess, like Mr. Freddy Parker, drew
the line at Russians. If only they would not dress so oddly, with those
open collars, leathern belts, and scarlet blouses! The judge, also, was
never asked to come--he was too outspoken a freethinker, and too fond of
spitting on the floor. Nor did Mr. Eames put in an appearance. He
avoided social obligations; his limited means preventing him from
making any adequate return. But there was an ample display of
ecclesiastics, together with a few other notabilities. Mr. Heard
encountered some familiar faces, and made new friends. He felt drawn
towards Madame Steynlin--she had such a cheerful bright face.
"And how delightfully cool these rooms are!" he was saying to the
Duchess. "I wonder how you manage to keep the sirocco out?"
"By closing the windows, Bishop. English people will not believe that.
They open their windows. In comes the heat."
"If English people closed their windows they would die," said Don
Francesco. "Half the houses in England would be condemned by law in
this country and pulled down, on account of their low ceilings. Low
ceilings have given the Englishman his cult of fresh air. He likes to
be cosy and familiar and exclusive; he has no sense for broad social
functions. There is something of the cave-dweller in every Englishman.
He may say what he likes, but the humble cottage will always remain his
dream. You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. This
country is pastoral. That is why our advertisements are so apt to
portray commercial conditions--enormous factories and engines and
chimneys; we are dissatisfied with our agricultural state. The
Frenchman's aspiration is woman; Paris hoardings will tell you that.
England is a land of industrial troglodytes, where every man's cavern
is his castle. Its advertisements depict either gross masses of food
such as cave-dwellers naturally relish, or else quiet country
scenes--green lanes, and sunsets, and peaceful dwellings in the country.
Home, sweet home! The cottage! That means open windows or suffocation....
I think I see the person who spoke to you on the steamer," he
added to Mr. Heard. "I don't like his looks. He is coming our way."
"That must be Mr. Muhlen," exclaimed the Duchess. "They say he played
beautifully at the hotel last night. I wonder whether I could induce
him to try my Longwood? It's rather an old model, I fear, and out of
tune."
The gentleman appeared, ostentatiously dressed and escorted by Mr.
Richards, the Vice-President of the Alpha and Omega Club, who seemed to
be fairly steady on his legs and was presently absorbed in an artistic
examination of a number of silver ornaments, crucifixes, relics and
suchlike objects of virtu, which the Duchess had gathered together. He
handled them like a connoisseur. Others of that institution had
promised to attend the party but, on being overhauled by the
conscientious Vice-President, were found to be unpresentable at the
last moment.
The Duchess moved away to greet him. Mr. Heard remarked to Don
Francesco:
"That middle-aged colleague of yours, yonder--he has an unusual face."
"Our parish priest. A sound Christian!"
The PARROCO'S thin lips, peaked nose, beady eyes and colourless cheeks
proclaimed the anchorite, if not the monomaniac. He flitted about like
a draught of cold air, refusing all refreshments and not daring to
smell the flowers, lest he should derive too much pleasure from them.
He was often called Torquemada, from his harsh and abstemious habits.
The name had been given him, of course, by his brother priests who knew
about such matters, and not by the common people to whom the word
Torquemada would have suggested, if anything, a savoury kind of
pudding. Torquemada was capable of any sacrifice, of any enormity, in
defence of the faith. A narrow medieval type, he was the only person on
Nepenthe who would have been hewn in pieces for his God--nobody allowing
themselves to be even temporarily incommoded in so visionary a cause.
He enjoyed a reputation of perfect chastity which differentiated him
from all the remaining priests and contributed, more than anything
else, to his unpopularity. It enraged the frankly carnal natives to
such an extent that they made insinuations about his bodily health and
told other horrible stories, swore they were true, and offered to give
statistical figures in confirmation. They said, among other things,
that after begging money from wealthy foreigners for alleged repairs to
the parish organ and other godly purposes, he kept the proceeds himself
on the principle that charity began at home and ought to end there.
Nobody could deny his devotion to mother, sisters, and even distant
relatives. So much was also certain, that the PARROCO'S family was
poor.
Harp-like tinklings arose from an adjoining chamber; a general move
took place in that direction. Mr. Keith was there. He sat beside Madame
Steynlin who, being a fair performer herself, was listening with
rapture to Muhlen's strains. During a pause he said:
"I wish I could make it out. It annoys me, Madame Steynlin, not to
comprehend the charm of music. I would give almost anything to the
person who can satisfy me that what I hear is not a succession of
unnecessary noises."
"Perhaps you are not musical."
"That would not prevent my understanding the feelings of people like
yourself. I don't want to be musical. I want to get a grip of this
thing. I want to know. Tell me why you like it and why I don't. Tell
me--"
The sounds began again.
"Ah!" said the Duchess, "that wonderful ANDANTE CON BRIO!"
Then, as the strains grew louder, she whispered to Don Francesco upon a
subject which had always puzzled her.
"I would be glad to learn," she said, "why our parliamentary
representative, Commendatore Morena, has never yet visited Nepenthe.
Surely it is his duty to show himself now and then to his
parishioners--constituents, I mean? This festival of Saint Dodekanus
would have been such a good opportunity. His appearance would have been
a discomfiture for the free-thinkers. Every year he promises to come.
And every year he fails us. Why?"
"I cannot tell," replied the priest. "The animal has probably got other
things to do."
"The animal? Ah, don't say that! And such a good Catholic!"
"Foreigners, dear Duchess, I leave to your judgment. They are of little
account, anyhow. But you will be guided by me in your appreciation of
the worldly qualities of natives. Otherwise, with all your
intelligence, it will be impossible for you to avoid mistakes. Let us
leave it at that."
"But why--"
"We will leave it at that, dear lady!"
"Indeed we will, Don Francesco," replied the Duchess, who loved to be
ruled in matters of this kind.
At this moment, the performer rose from the piano with unexpected
suddenness remarking SOTTO VOCE that if he had known he was to play on
a spinet he would have brought some Lulli with him. He was beaming all
over, none the less, and soon making arrangements with other guests for
a series of picnics and boating excursions--getting on swimmingly, in
fact, when the thoughtless Madame Steynlin captured him and began to
talk music. He repeated that remark, too good to be lost, about the
spinet; it led to Scarlatti, Mozart, Handel. He said Handel was the
saviour of English music. She said Handel was its blight and damnation.
Each being furnished with copious arguments, the discussion degenerated
into technicalities.
Denis, meanwhile, was handing round tea-cakes and things, with the
double object of making himself useful and of being as near as possible
to Angelina, the hand-maiden of the Duchess, a bewitchingly pretty
brunette, who was doing the same. Perhaps the existence of Angelin
accounted for his respectful attentions and frequent visits to the
Duchess. He felt he was really in love for the first time in his life.
He worshipped from afar. He would have liked to worship from a little
nearer, but did not know how to set about it; he was afraid of
troubling what he called her innocence. Hitherto he had scored no great
success. Angelina, aged fifteen, with the figure of a fairy, a glowing
complexion, and a rich southern voice, was perfectly aware of his
idealistic sentiments. She responded to the extent of gazing at him,
now and then, in a most disconcerting fashion. It was as though she
cared little about idealism. She did not smile. There was neither love
nor disdain in that gaze; it was neither hot nor cold, nor yet
lukewarm; it was something else, something he did not want at
all--something that made him feel childish and uncomfortable.
And another pair of eyes were watching all the time, her sinuous
movements--those of Mr. Edgar Marten. This young scientist, too,
cherished loving thoughts about Angelina, thoughts of a more earthly
and volcanic tinge; certain definite projects which made him forget, at
times, his preoccupation with biotite, perlite, magnetite, anorthite,
and pyroxene.
"Denis," said Keith, in his usual pompous fashion. "Do put down that
absurd tray and let people help themselves. Listen to me for a moment.
How do you like this place? I am not asking out of vulgar curiosity; I
am anxious to know the impressions of a person of your age and
antecedents. You might collect them for me, will you? Not now. One day
when you are in the mood. Somewhat terrestrial and palpitating, is it
not, after the cloistered twilight of a University?"
"I came here from Florence," observed Denis.
"And even after Florence! Do you know why? Because mankind dominates in
Tuscany. The land is encrusted with ephemeral human conceits. That is
not altogether good for a youngster; it disarranges his mind and puts
him out of harmony with what is permanent. Just listen a moment. Here,
if you are wise, you will seek an antidote. Taken in over-doze, all
these churches and pictures and books and other products of our species
are toxins for a boy like you. They falsify your cosmic values. Try to
be more of an animal. Try to extract pleasure from more obvious
sources. Lie fallow for a while. Forget all these things. Go out into
the midday glare. Sit among rocks and by the sea. Have a look at the
sun and stars for a change; they are just as impressive as Donatello.
Find yourself! You know the Cave of Mercury? Climb down, one night of
full moon, all alone, and rest at its entrance. Familiarize yourself
with elemental things. The whole earth reeks of humanity and its works.
One has to be old and tough to appraise them at their true worth. Tell
people to go to Hell, Denis, with their altar-pieces and museums and
clock-towers and funny little art-galleries."
Everybody is always giving me advice, thought Denis. And the worst of
it is, it's often sound.
A melodious voice added:
"If, after that lecture, you still have some crotchety appreciation
left for the works of man, you may be interested, when next you visit
the Old Town, to look at some busts and other curiosities of mine.
There is a little Greek bronze I would like to show you, though perhaps
we had better not talk too openly about it. Pray come. You will extract
pleasure from that statuette. And I will extract pleasure from your
company. Obvious sources of pleasure, aren't they, Keith?"
It was Count Caloveglia. He was referring to the Locri Faun, a
wonderful antique which had recently been found on his property near
the town of that name on the neighbouring mainland, and was about to be
secretly smuggled out of Italy. He smiled in winning fashion as he
spoke. Like everyone else, Denis had fallen under the spell of this
attractive and courteous old aristocrat who was saturated to the very
marrow in the lore of antiquity. There was sunshine in his glance--a
lustrous gem--like grace; one realized from his conversation, from his
every word, that he had discarded superfluities of thought and browsed
for a lifetime, in leisurely fashion, upon all that purifies and exalts
the spirit. Nothing, one felt, would avail to ruffle that deep pagan
content.
"And how," he continued, addressing Denis, "are your Italian studies
progressing?"
"Fairly well, thank you. My French puts me out a little. And I can't
yet conjugate properly."
"That is certainly a drawback," said Don Francesco, appearing on the
scene. "But don't let it trouble you," he added in paternal tones. "It
will come in time. You are still young. You are learning Russian,
Madame Steynlin?"
"Only a few words." She blushed becomingly. "There are certain sounds,
like water being poured into a jug--neither easy nor pleasant. I am not
as quick as some people. Mrs. Meadows always speaks Hindustani to her
old Sicilian woman. She comprehends perfectly."
"So clever these people are, at languages!" said the Duchess.
Marten remarked:
"I don't bother to learn Italian. I talk Latin to them. They understand
all right."
"And what Latin, Marten!" laughed Denis. "No wonder they understand.
I'm coming to you on Thursday morning. Don't forget."
"I have not had your public school advantages. But I manage to get what
I want out of them, generally speaking," and he cast a fiery glance in
the direction of Angelina, who returned it over her shoulder,
unabashed. Denis, fortunately, was looking the other way.
"I wish I had enjoyed all your chances," observed the Duchess, with a
little mock-sigh. "We were so carelessly brought up. I learnt
practically nothing at school. It is a pity. Ah, Bishop! I forgot to
tell you. Such a charming note from your cousin. She cannot come. The
baby is teething and troublesome in this heat. You will have to drive
up, I'm afraid.... Mr. Keith, I have not yet thanked you for those
flowers and the book you sent. The flowers are quite too lovely. Look
at them! You are spoiling me--you really are! But I don't think I shall
like the book. Lady Cecilia and her maid and that man, I forget his
name--they do all sorts of things. They don't seem to be very nice
people."
"You have nothing but nice people round you, Duchess. Why should you
want to read about them? There is so much goodness in real life. Do let
us keep it out of our books."
"That sounds a dreadful doctrine. I see the PARROCO is about to take
his departure. Why does everybody leave so soon?"
She wandered away.
"The English are supposed to be bad linguists," said Don Francesco. "It
is one of those curious international fallacies, like saying the French
are a polite nation--"
"Or that home-made marmalade tastes better than the stuff you buy in
shops," added Denis. "I must help the Duchess to say good-bye to those
people. She likes to have some one handy on such occasions. She needs
an echo. I am becoming quite a good echo."
"You are," said Keith, rather sharply. "Quite a pretty echo. And you
ought to be a voice. Follow my prescription, Denis. The Cave of
Mercury."
Count Caloveglia remarked:
"What a pity that Latin, as scholars' language, for the definition and
registration of ideas, was ever abandoned! It has the incalculable
advantage that the meanings of words are irrevocably fixed by
authority. New ones could be coined as occasion required. Knowledge
would gain by leaps and bounds. There would be a cross-fertilization of
cultures. As things now stand, half the intellectuals of this world are
writing about matters which, unbeknown to themselves, have already been
treated by the other half. One would think that Commerce, which has
broken down geographical barriers, might have done the same to
political ones. Far from it! In sharpening men's lust for gold, it has
demarcated our frontiers with a bitterness hitherto unknown. The world
of thought has not expanded; it has contracted and grown provincial.
Men have lost sight of distant horizons. Nobody writes for humanity,
for civilization; they write for their country, their sect; to amuse
their friends or annoy their enemies. Pliny or Linneus or Humboldt--they
sat on mountain-tops; they surveyed the landscape at their feet, and if
some little valley lay shrouded in mist, the main outlines of the land
yet lay clearly distended before them. You will say that it is
impossible, nowadays, to gather up the threads of learning as did these
men; they are too multifarious, too divergent. A greater mistake could
not be imagined. For there is a contrary tendency at work--a tendency
towards unification. The threads converge. Medieval minds knew many
truths, hostile to one another. All truths are now seen to be
interdependent; never was synthesis easier of attainment. Conflict of
nationality and language hinders the movement. Mankind at large is the
loser. The adoption of a universal scholars' tongue would do much to
remove the obstacle. When these Southern races coalesce to form the
great alliance which I foresee, when the Mediterranean basin is once
more the centre of human activity as it deserves to be, some such plan
will doubtless be adopted."
"Your notion would suit me down to the ground," said the bishop, who
was a good Latinist. "I would love to converse in the old style with a
student from Salamanca or Bergen or Khieff or Padua or--"
Don Francesco gave utterance to some wholly unintelligible speech. Then
he observed:
"The student might not be able to catch your meaning, Mr. Heard. I was
only talking Latin! You see, we would be obliged to standardize our
pronunciation. I wonder, by the way, why the old scholars' language was
ever discarded?"
"Patriotism destroyed it," replied the Count. "That narrow modern
patriotism of the cock-on-the-dung-hill type."
Mr. Keith began:
"It is an atavistic and altogether discreditable phenomenon--this recent
recrudescence of monarchical principles--"
"What did you promise about long words?" playfully enquired the
Duchess, who had just returned.
"I cannot help it, dear lady. It is my mother's fault. She was so very
precise. I was carefully brought up."
"That is a pity, Mr. Keith."
"Northern people are very precise," said Don Francesco, folding his
gown around his ample limbs. "Particularly in love affairs. We down
here, who live in this sirocco, are supposed to be calculating and
mercenary in matters of the heart. We want dowries for our
daughters--they say we are always coming to the point: money, money! The
capacity of an English girl for coming to the point will take some
beating. She paralyses you with directness. I will tell you a true
story. There was a young Italian whom I knew--yes, I knew him well. He
had just arrived in London; very handsome in the face, though perhaps a
little too fat. He fell in love with an elegant young lady who was
employed in the establishment of Madame Elise in Bond Street. He used
to wait for her to come out at six o'clock and follow her like a dog,
not daring to speak. He carried a costly bracelet for her in his
pocket, and every day fresh flowers, which he was always too shy and
too deeply enamoured to present. She was his angel, his ideal. He
dreamt of her by day and night, wondering whether he would ever have
the courage to address so tall and queenly a creature. It was his first
English love affair, you understand; he learnt the proper technique
later on. For five or six weeks this unhappy state of things continued,
till one day, when he was running after her as usual, she turned round
furiously and said: 'What do you mean, sir, by following me about it
this disgusting fashion? How day you? I shall call the police, if it
occurs again.' He was deprived of speech at first: he could only gaze
in what you call dumb amazement. Then he managed to stammer out
something about his heart and his love, and to show her the flowers and
the bracelet. She said: 'So that's it, is it? Well of all the funny
boys. Why couldn't you speak up sooner? D'you know of a place round
here--'"
"Ha, ha, ha!"
It was a formidable explosion on the part of the Commissioner, in an
adjoining room.
He was talking to some friends about Napoleon.
They wanted a fellow like that on Nepenthe--a fellow who got things
done. Napoleon would have made no bones about the Wilberforce woman
over there. It was a scandalous state of affairs. What was the use of a
Committee for trying to keep her in order and getting her locked up in
a sanatorium? Everybody knew what a Committee meant. Committee! It was
a preposterous word. Committees were the same all the world over.
Committee! He was in charge of that particular one; they were dong all
they could, but what did it amount to? Nothing. To begin with, there
was not enough money coming in, unless somebody could wheedle a cheque
out of that rich old Koppen sensualist whose yacht might be arriving at
any moment. And then her own pig-headedness! She refused to be talked
over into doing what was in her own interests. Napoleon, he reckoned,
might have talked her over--ha, ha, ha!
The lady in question, all unaware of these humanitarian designs, had
taken up a strategic position in the neighbourhood of the drinks, and
was glancing shyly round the room in search of a likely male who would
fetch her a stiff glass of something from the buffet, and that soon.
She was groggy, but not sufficiently primed to go there herself; she
knew that everybody's eye would be fixed upon her; she had been much
talked about of late. Drunk, she was impossible; dead sober, almost as
bad--haughty, sullen, logical, with a grieved and surprised air
suggestive of wounded dignity.
People avoided Miss Wilberforce. And yet you could not help liking her
in those rare moments when she was just a little disguised. She had a
pretty wit, then; a residue of gentle nurture; tender instincts and a
winsomeness of manner that captivated you. Nor were appearances against
her. That frail, arrowy figure was invariably clothed in black. She
wore the colour by instinct. They said she had lost her sailor fiance
who was drowned, poor lad, in the Mediterranean; and that now she
wandered about at night looking for him, or trying to forget him and
seeking oblivion in tipple.
The story happened to be true, for a wonder. She had received a twist
for life. The death of this young lover gave to her impressionable
being a shock which never passed off again. The world was turned inside
out for Amy Wilberforce. She seldom spoke of his fate. But she was
always talking about the sea. She tried to drown herself, once or
twice. Then, gradually, she put on a new character altogether and
relapsed into queer ancestral traits, stripping off, like so many
worthless rags, the layers of laboriously acquired civilization. The
refined and bashful girl became brusque, supercilious, equivocal. When
sympathizing friends said that they had also lost lovers, she laughed
and told them to look for new ones. There were better fish in the sea,
etc., etc.
Soon she found herself abandoned, in spite of a full banking account.
People had dropped her, right and left.
The years went by.
Calmly, without misgivings and without fervour, she took to the bottle.
Something drew her to Nepenthe--dim Mediterranean memories. Arrived
there, she used to engulf three pints of Martell and Hennessey, one
after the other, and then "wash them out"--such was her phraseology--with
a magnum of Perrier Jouet; a proceeding which, while it heightened her
complexion and gave a sparkle to her poor flustered eye, was not
conducive to the preservation of equilibrium in the lower limbs. There
resulted those periodical "nervous breakdowns" which necessitated
seclusion and sometimes medical treatment. The collapses had become
distressingly frequent with the last year or two. One of her many
drawbacks was that she courted publicity in her cups. She was perfectly
reckless as to what she then said, and had been known to bring a blush
to the seasoned cheek of Don Francesco himself who, unaware of her
condition at one particular moment, politely ventured to enquire why
she always wore black and was told that she was in mourning, as
everybody ought to mourn, for his lost innocence. Being an
Englishwoman, she was a thorn in the side of her moral compatriot the
Commissioner.
Her noctambulous habits often brought her into contact with the local
police and sometimes with His Worship Signor Malipizzo. Greatly to the
surprise of Mr. Parker, the magistrate was observed to take a lenient
view of the case. None the less, she had passed several nights in the
local gaol. Staggering about the lanes of Nepenthe in the silent hours
before dawn, she was liable to be driven, at the bidding of some dark
primeval impulse, to divest herself of her raiment--a singularity which
perturbed even the hardiest of social night-birds who had the
misfortune to encounter her. Taxed with this freakish behaviour, she
would refer to the example of St. Francis of Assisi who did the same,
and brazenly ask whether he wasn't good enough for them? Whether she
couldn't give her last shirt to a beggar, as well as anybody else? In
short, there was nothing to be done with her.
The dear lady, as Keith often called her, was becoming a real problem.
And now her eye, roving round the room, fixed itself with the
drunkard's divine unerring instinct upon Denis. What a nice, modest,
gentlemanly-looking boy! Just what she wanted.
"This sirocco!" she sighed, groping dramatically for a chair. "It makes
me feel so funny. Oh, dear! I shall go off in a faint. Ah, do be a kind
young man and fetch me some brandy and soda. A large tumbler. Ah, do!
And very little soda, please--on account of my heart. Only the smallest
drop!"
She took two or three sips, paused awhile as though undecided whether
she could possibly swallow such nasty stuff and then, with a fine show
of reluctance, gulped it all down. Denis was spell-bound; the dose, he
artlessly imagined, was enough to kill a horse. Far from being damaged,
Miss Wilberforce took a chair beside him, and began to converse.
Charmingly she talked; all about England. As he listened he grew
delighted, entranced. She was different, somehow, from all the other
ladies he had lately met on the Continent. She was altogether
different. Whence came it, he wondered?
Then, as the discourse proceeded, he began to realize what was the
matter with them. It was odd, he thought, that he had not noticed it
before. Miss Wilberforce made him realize wherein the difference lay.
They spoke English, it was true; but they had all taken on a
Continental outlook; alien phrases, expressions, affectations;
cosmopolitan airs and graces that jarred on his frank, untarnished
English nature. This one was otherwise. She was old England, through
and through. The conversation cheered him to an unusual degree--among
all those foreign people he felt strangely drawn towards this wistful
lady who could talk so naturally and conjure up, by the mere power of
words, a breath of his own homestead in the Midlands. He might have
been sitting with an elder sister just then, eating strawberries and
cream and watching a tennis match on some shady green lawn. He was
happy; happier still when Angelina once more floated into his ken and,
noticing Miss Wilberforce, raised her eyebrows mischievously and gave
him something that looked like a real smile, for a change.
She had another smile, however, for Mr. Edgar Marten; and yet another
one for Don Francesco who, as she passed near him, profited by the
occasion to give her a paternal semi-proprietary chuck under the chin,
accompanying the indecorous movement with an almost audible wink.
Mr. Heard had noticed everything. He frowned at first. It gave him a
little twinge, and some food for thought. He was absurdly sensitive
about women.
"A frolicsome child," he mused. "LASCIVA PUELLA. Possibly wanton."
What were this young man's relations with the girl? That contact of
hand and chin--what did it imply? Was the action quasi-paternal, or
pseudo-paternal? Regretfully he decided that it was only
pseudo-paternal.
And yet--it was all so confoundedly natural!
"Nobody but our PARROCO could keep his hands off that girl," blithely
remarked the priest.
Another little twinge....