The next morning very early when he stepped out of his room, he saw at
the end of the hall a little group of three people, the half-grown burly
boy who carried water-pitchers and blacked shoes, the tall, aproned,
black-moustached house-servant who swept the rooms and waited on the
table, and the girl he had seen on the roof the night before. He knew
her at once although she was in a street-dress now, and he saw only her
back and the gleaming coils of her hair. He found that he had no
intention of doing anything in the world but of going to speak to her,
somehow; and turning down the tiled corridor he walked towards the
three. They had their backs towards him and were all talking Italian
with extreme rapidity. "Oh!" it came to Neale with a shock, "she was an
Italian!" Of course, with those dark eyes and hair. It had not once
occurred to him, during the night, that she might be an Italian. He felt
hot with vexation. Damn it! He spoke so little Italian!
He stopped short in the passage-way irresolute, suffering that most
wretched and miserable of human embarrassments, the one that began with
the Tower of Babel. He wasn't going to make an idiot of himself trying
to talk to her in that horrible broken tourist-Italian of his. His
disappointment was so acute that he could not for an instant collect
himself enough to turn away, and stood glowering at the three backs.
They were talking far too rapidly for him to understand what they said,
but by their pantomime it was plain that the girl was moved by something
which left the two men quite unaffected, that she was making a low-toned
agitated appeal to them, which they received with the shrugged shoulders
and uplifted eyebrows of reasonable men before an unreasonable idea. She
was pointing out, leaning forward, shrinking back, she was saying, "Oh!
oh! _oh!_" her low voice rising to a little wail of distress that went
to Neale's heart. He looked over their backs out of the window following
the direction of the girl's hand, and saw at first only the beautiful,
early-morning, myriad-winged swoop of the Roman swallows filling the
bright air with their rhythmic wheelings. He had watched them for hours
on his former visit, had thought them one of the most purely lovely
elements of the city's charm.
"Oh!" cried the girl again, and covered her face with her hands.
Neale saw at last what she saw, a lean yellow cat crouching in ambush in
a corner between a dormer window and a sky-light. As he looked the cat
sprang up suddenly, a streak of murdering speed high into the air, and
seized an incautious swallow swooping too low.
The two men at the window looked at the girl, shrugged their shoulders
again and went back coolly to their work. The comedy was finished. What
could any one do about it? Most evidently nothing. The man lifted his
broom to sweep. The boy stooped to take up his water-pitcher. The girl
took her hands from her face, and turned away from the window. Neale had
expected to see her look agitated and excited; but her pale face was set
in an expression of unsurprised endurance. It was evident that she too
perceived that there was nothing to do about it.
"Well, there _was_ something to do about it!" thought Neale wildly,
feeling a fury of resentment at the two men. He'd show them!
He sprang past the girl with a great bound to the window and saw that,
as he thought, a slope of tiled roof lay below it, the slope so gentle,
the tiles so rough that it would be quite easy to keep his footing on
it, although the drop to the court below would be dizzying if he stopped
to look at it. But he did not stop to look at that, or anything but the
cat, slinking slowly off across the roof beyond, the swallow in her
mouth.
He took one long step out over the low window-sill and stood on the
tiles. He heard the girl behind him give a cry, and it sped him forward.
He ran along the narrow slope of tiles, one hand on the wall to steady
himself till he could, with a leap, reach the roof where the cat was
making off towards the ridge-pole with her prey. Here it was easier, a
wide stretch of tiles over which he could really run.
The cat heard him, saw him, paused an instant, dazed by the suddenness
of his appearance, turned her head and flattened herself for a leap
forward. But his leap was quicker than hers. He reached her, and pounced
on her with a swoop that was part of the forward rhythm of his running,
pounced, seized her firmly, and forced open her jaws. The swallow
dropped out on the tiles, wet and ruffled, its eyes closed, its poor,
slim, gleaming head bent limply to one side as if its neck were broken.
Neale stooped and picked it up, stroking it pityingly and smoothing its
pretty, rumpled plumes. He had been too late after all. But as it lay in
his hand it seemed to him he felt its delicate body stir. Perhaps it was
only half dead with fright. Did it move a little or had he imagined it?
As he stood astride the ridge-pole of the roof, the level rays of the
early sun shone straight into his eyes so that he could not see whether
the bird's eyes had opened or not. He turned his back to the sun and
held his hand, with the bird in it, closer to his face. Why, yes, the
eyes were open, soft dark eyes that looked wildly and despairingly into
his. The intensity of that sudden look gave him a start. He opened his
fingers and the bird burst out of his hand with a loud beating flutter
and soared up into the air. Neale threw back his head to watch it, moved
almost to a shout of exultation as the twittering flock swooped past his
head.
Then he saw that the cat was calmly making her way back to her ambush
corner. "Hey, there!" he shouted gaily at her, and, sprinting along,
snatched her up. "You're going back down cellar to catch rats, kitty
mio," he told her aloud, laughing. He was astonished at his own high
spirits. High up on the richly colored old roof, close to that glorious
sun with the swallows dashing, twittering about his head, the rescued
one among them, he could have flung his arms about and danced for sheer
lightness of heart.
What he did was to tuck the protesting cat under his arm and make his
way back with considerably more caution than he had gone up. The passage
along the narrow slope of tile below the window was worse than he had
thought, made him a little sick to face. A damn-fool performance anyhow,
he reflected, picking his steps, looking carefully away from the sheer
black drop to the stone-paved courtyard below him. A very damn-fool
performance for a serious-minded man of twenty-six to go careering over
roofs like that.
With a short, quickly-taken breath of relief, he stepped over the
window-sill back into the corridor. The men and the girl who had been
leaning tensely out, watching him, stepped back respectfully to give him
room.
Before he could turn to the girl, the servant had snatched the cat from
under his arm, and with a fine air of virtuous indignation was cuffing
her savagely over the head, pouring out on her a loud, highly-articulate
flood of vituperation. The boy lifted his hand to join in the game,
crying out, "Bestia del diavolo," "animaluzzo dannato!" and the like.
"Oh, good Lord!" thought Neale impatiently. "Isn't that just _like_
them! Hey, _stop_ that!" he cried aloud, and as the man paid no
attention to this he seized him somewhat roughly by the shoulder in a
grip that paralyzed the arm. He caught the cat as she fell and held her
up over his head. He was so tall, so long-armed, that she now dangled
high in the air, quite out of reach, yowling at the top of her voice, a
ridiculous scene altogether!
He tried sternly to explain his feelings and issue his commands, but
as was to be expected his Italian gave way under the strain: "Troppo
in ritardo punire il gatto ... it's too late to jump on the cat _now_,
you poor chump; she wouldn't have any idea what it's for. Gatto non
capisce ... it's not her fault anyhow. She doesn't know any better.
Take her down cellar, dans la cave; she's all right catching rats.
That's what she's for! And look here," he stopped his pitiful attempt at
Italian and ended fiercely, trusting to a grim eye and a set jaw to make
his meaning plain, "Don't you try any funny business on the cat when I'm
not around, or I'll knock your heads together till you can't see."
He heard the girl speak to the men in an Italian that was so rapid it
made him dizzy and at the end caught the phrase, "do you understand?"
The men nodded, by no means pleased at the rebuff, the boy motioned
Neale to give him the cat, and carried her off carefully down the
corridor.
"That was the very most splendid thing for you to do," the girl said to
him, with a soft energy of accent.
He whirled about towards her, the immensity of his relief flooding his
face. "Oh, you _do_ speak English! You're _not_ Italian!" he cried, the
intonation of his phrase seeming to indicate that she had lifted from
his mind an apprehension of infinitely long standing.
"Oh, yes," she said, smiling and looking directly at him, "of course I
speak English. I'm an American girl. My name is Marise Allen."
Neale was so affected by the sweetness of her smile on him, by the
softness of her shining dark eyes, that he felt himself blushing and
stammering like a little boy. "M-mine is Neale Crittenden," he
answered.