But a week or so later, Bertram having found an almost daily occasion
for coming to Villa Santa Cecilia, “It really does begin to look,” Ponty
said, in a tone that sounded tentatively exultant, “as if at last we
were more or less by way of getting her off our hands. _Unberufen_,” he
made haste to add, zealously tapping the arm of his wicker chair.
“Oh----?” Lucilla doubted, her eyebrows going up. Then, on reflection,
“It certainly looks,” she admitted, “as if Prince Bertrandoni were very
much taken with her. But so many men have been that, poor dears,” she
remembered, sighing, “and you know with what fortune.”
“Ah, but in this case I'm thinking of _her_,” Ponty eagerly
discriminated. “It's she who seems taken with Prince Bertrandoni. I half
believe she's actually in love with him--and, anyhow, I wouldn't mind
betting she'd accept him. _Unberufen_.”
Lucilla's soft face wondered. “In love with him?” she repeated. “Why
should you think that?”
“Oh, reasons as plentiful as blackberries,” Ponty answered. “The way in
which she brightens up at his arrival, absorbs herself in him while
he's here, wilts at his departure, and then, during his absence, mopes,
pines, muses, falls pensive at all sorts of inappropriate moments, as
one whose heart is hugging something secret and bitter-sweet. Of course,
I'm only a man, and inexperienced, but I should call these the symptoms
of a maid in love--and evidences that she loves her love with a B.
However, in love or not, it's plain she likes him immensely, and I'll
bet a sovereign she's made up her mind to marry him if he asks her.”
“Oh, he'll ask her fast enough,” Lucilla with confidence predicted.
“It's only a question of her giving him a chance.”
Ponty shook his wrinkled brow. “I wish I were cocksure of that,” he
said. “You see, after all, he's not as other men. On one side he's a
semi-royalty, and there are dynastic considerations; on t'other side
he's a Wohenhoffen, and, with every respect for the house of Adgate,
I'm doubting whether the Wohenhoffens would quite regard them as even
birthish. Of course, she has money, and money might go a long way
towards rose-colouring their visions. Still, their vision is a thing he'd
have to reckon with. No--I'm afraid he may continue to philander, and
let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' unless she gives him a good
deal more than a mere chance--unless she gives him positive
encouragement--unless, in fine, by showing the condition of her own
heart she sweeps the poor fellow off his feet. You question whether
she's in love with him. Dear child, why shouldn't she be? 'Tis Italy,
'tis springtime, and whither should a young girl's fancy turn? Besides,
she has red hair.”
“Springtime?” protested Lucilla. “I thought it was September.”
“So it is,” agreed her brother, flourishing his cigarette. “But
September in Italy is proud-pied April under a pseudonym. The April
winds are passional for bachelors and dames. Besides, she has red hair.”
“Red hair?” protested Lucilla. “Her hair is brown.”
“So it is,” agreed her brother, with a second flourish. “But the
larger includes the less. I did not say she was a red-haired woman. A
red-haired woman is red, a black-haired woman is black, and there's an
end on't; expect no mystery, no semi-tones, no ambiguities. I said she
had red hair, and so she has, since her hair is brown. A brown-haired
woman is everything, is infinite variety, is as elusively multi-coloured
as a dying dolphin. A brown-haired woman's hair is red, black, blue,
green, purple, amber, with their thousand intermediates, according
to mood and tense. Oh, give me a brown-haired woman, and surprises,
improbabilities, perplexities, will never be to seek. A brown-haired
woman has red hair, and red hair means a temperament and a temper. No,
I honestly think our little brown-haired friend, in just so far as her
hair is red, is feeling foolish about Bertram, and I look hopefully
forward (_unberufen_) to the day when her temper or her temperament
will get the better of her discretion, and let him see what's what. Then
(_unberufen_) his native chivalry will compel him to offer her his hand.
Thank goodness she has money.”
“It's very handsome of you,” said Ruth, for the first time coming into
the conversation, though she had been present from its inception, “it's
very handsome indeed of you to take so much interest in my affairs--and
to discuss them so frankly before my face.”
“It _is_ handsome of us,” agreed Pontycroft, chucking his cigarette
away, “and I am glad you appreciate it. For we might be discussing the
weather, a vastly more remunerative theme. Has it ever struck you
how inept the duffers are who taboo the weather as a subject of
conversation? There's nothing else in the physical universe so directly
vital to man's welfare as the weather, nothing on which his comfort so
immediately depends, and nothing (to take a higher ground) that speaks
such an eloquent and varied language to his sense of beauty. The music
of the wind, the colours of the sky, the palaces and pictures in the
clouds! Yet duffers taboo it as a subject of conversation. The weather
is the physiognomy of Heaven towards us, its smile or frown. What else
should we discuss? Hello, here he comes.”
Bertram came up the garden path and mounted the terrace.
“My mother,” he announced, “is arriving this evening from Vienna. I
was wondering whether you would lunch with us to-morrow, to make her
acquaintance.”
“Oho,” whispered Ponty in Ruth's ear, “this really does look like
business. Madame Mère is coming to look you over.”