‘Dear Constance: You’ll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo en route for the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with us, and you know what a man is when it comes to European travel. Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles in ten days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.
‘Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.
‘You can imagine the exhausted state Aunt Kate and I are in after travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected, and now he’s rushed off again—where to, goodness only knows; we don’t.
‘Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that’s too complicated to write. We’ve engaged rooms at the Hotel du Lac—I hope it’s decent; it’s the only place starred in Baedeker.
‘Aunt Kate wishes to be remembered to your father and Miss Hazel.
‘Yours ever,
‘Nan Hilliard.
‘P.S.—I’m awfully sorry not to bring Jerry; I know you’d adore him.’
She returned the letter to its envelope and looked up.
‘Now isn’t that abominable?’ she demanded.
‘Abominable!’ Miss Hazel was scandalized. ‘My dear, I think it’s delightful.’
‘Oh, yes—I mean about Jerry Junior; I’ve been trying for six years to get hold of that man.’
Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard of rope, and the Farfalla listed heavily to starboard.
‘Tony!’ Constance threw over her shoulder. ‘Don’t you know enough to sit still when you are holding the sheet?’
‘Scusi,’ he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; he wore an expression of alert attention.
‘Of course we shall have them at the villa,’ said Miss Hazel. ‘And we shall have to get some new dishes. Elizabetta has already broken so many plates that she has to stop and wash them between courses.’
Constance looked dreamily across the lake; she appeared to be thinking. ‘I wonder,’ she inquired finally, ‘if Jerry Junior knew we were here in Valedolmo?’
Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.
‘Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person you were, he said to himself, “I’d better keep out.”’
‘I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerably heavier.’
‘So there is already a score? I hadn’t supposed that the game had begun.’
She nodded.
‘Six years ago—but he doesn’t know it. Yes, Dad,’ her tone was melodramatic, ‘for six years I’ve been waiting for Jerry Junior and planning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, he eludes me again!’
‘Dear me!’ Mr. Wilder ejaculated. ‘What did the young man do?’
Had Constance turned she would have found Tony’s face an interesting study. But she knew well enough without looking at him that he was listening to the conversation, and she determined to give him something to listen to. It was a salutary thing for Tony to be kept in mind of the fact that there were other men in the world.
She sighed.
‘He was the first man I ever loved, father, and he spurned me. Do you remember that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were called South on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn’t let me because you didn’t like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whom I had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn’t want to go, and you said I must, and was perfectly horrid about it?—you remember that?’
Mr. Wilder grunted.
‘Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, I finally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale Glee Club came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and Miss Jane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been above eighty—that of course included me.
‘Well, we all went, and we all fell in love—in a body—with a sophomore who played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely dark gazelle-like eyes, and he sang funny songs without smiling. The whole school raved about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of the programme and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, father’—she paused dramatically—‘was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!’
‘I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs. Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually going to visit in his house—well, I was the most popular girl in school. I was sixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided down my back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I was supposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in the house besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They made the children eat in the school-room! I never saw him until Christmas night; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sort of way, said “How d’y’ do?” and forgot all about me. He went off with the Glee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more.
‘We were playing blind man’s buff in the school-room; I had just been caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else was clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood Jerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled——
‘“What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?”’
She shut her eyes.
‘Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was at that moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a kid!’
‘And you’ve never seen him since?’ Miss Hazel’s smile expressed amused indulgence.
Constance shook her head.
‘He’s always been away when I’ve visited Nan—and for six years I’ve been waiting.’ She straightened up with an air of determination. ‘But now, if he’s on the continent of Europe, I’ll get him!’
‘And what shall you do with him?’ her father mildly inquired.
‘Do with him? I’ll make him take it back; I’ll make him eat that word kid!’
‘H’m!’ said her father. ‘I hope you’ll get him; he might act as an antidote to some of these officers.’
They had run in under the shadow of the mountain and the keel grated on the shore. Constance raised her eyes and studied the towering crag above their heads; when she lowered them again, her gaze for an instant met Tony’s. There was a new light in his eyes—amusement, triumph, something entirely baffling. He gave her the intangible feeling of having at last got the mastery of the situation.
CHAPTER XI
The sun was setting behind Monte Maggiore, the fishing smacks were coming home, Luigi had long since carried the tea things into the house; but still the two callers lingered on the terrace of Villa Rosa. It was Lieutenant di Ferara’s place to go first since he had come first, and Captain Coroloni doggedly held his post until such time as his junior officer should see fit to take himself off. The captain knew, as well as every one else at the officers’ mess, that in the end the lieutenant would be the favoured man; for he was a son of Count Guido di Ferara, of Turin, and titles are at a premium in the American market. But still the marriage contract was not signed yet, and the fact remained that the captain had come last; accordingly he waited.
They had been there fully two hours, and poor Miss Hazel was worn with the strain. She sat nervously on the edge of her chair, and leaned forward with clasped hands listening intently. It required very keen attention to keep the run of either the captain’s or the lieutenant’s English. A few days before she had laughed at what seemed to be a funny story, and had later learned that it was an announcement of the death of the lieutenant’s grandmother. To-day she confined her answers to inarticulate murmurs which might be interpreted as either assents or negations as the case required.
Constance, however, was buoyantly at her ease; she loved nothing better than the excitement of a difficult situation. As she bridged over pauses, and unobtrusively translated from the officer’s English into real English, she at the same time kept a watchful eye on the water. She had her own reasons for wishing to detain the callers until her father’s return.
Presently she saw, across the lake, a yellow sailboat float out from the shadow of Monte Maggiore and head in a long tack toward Villa Rosa. With this she gave up the task of keeping the conversation general; and abandoning Captain Coroloni to her aunt, she strolled over to the terrace parapet with Lieutenant di Ferara at her side. The picture they made was a charming colour scheme. Constance wore white, the lieutenant pale blue; an oleander tree beside them showed a cloud of pink blossoms, while behind them for a background appeared the rose of the villa wall and the deep green of cypresses against a sunset sky. The picture was particularly effective as seen from the point of view of an approaching boat.
Constance broke off a spray of oleander, and while she listened to the lieutenant’s recountal of a practice march, she picked up his hat from the balustrade and idly arranged the flowers in the vizor. He bent toward her and said something; she responded with a laugh. They were both too occupied to notice that the boat had floated close in shore, until the flap of the falling sail announced its presence. Constance glanced up with a start. She caught her father’s eye fixed anxiously upon her; whatever Gustavo and the officers’ mess of the tenth cavalry might think, he had not the slightest wish in the world to see his daughter the Contessa di Ferara. Tony’s face also wore an expression; he was sober, disgusted, disdainful; there was a glint of anger and determination in his eye. Constance hurried to the water-steps to greet her father. Of Tony she took no manner of notice; if a man elects to be a donkey-driver, he must swallow the insults that go with the part.
The officers, observing that Luigi was hovering about the doorway waiting to announce dinner, waived the question of precedence and made their adieus. While Mr. Wilder and Miss Hazel were intent on the captain’s laboured farewell speech, the lieutenant crossed to Constance, who still stood at the head of the water-steps. He murmured something in Italian as he bowed over her hand and raised it to his lips. Constance blushed very becomingly as she drew her hand away; she was aware, if the officer was not, that Tony was standing beside them looking on. But as he raised his eyes, he too became aware of it; the man’s expression was more than impertinent. The lieutenant stepped to his side and said something low and rapid, something which should have made a right-minded donkey-driver touch his hat and slink off. But Tony held his ground with a laugh which was more impertinent than the stare had been. The lieutenant’s face flushed angrily, and his hand half instinctively went to his sword. Constance stepped forward.
‘Tony! I shall have no further need of your services. You may go.’
Tony suddenly came to his senses.
‘I—beg your pardon, Miss Wilder,’ he stammered.
‘I shall not want you again; please go.’ She turned her back and joined the others.
The two officers with final salutes took themselves off. Miss Hazel hurried indoors to make ready for dinner; Mr. Wilder followed in her wake, muttering something about finding the change to pay Tony. Constance stood where they left her, staring at the pavement with hotly burning cheeks.
‘Miss Wilder!’ Tony crossed to her side; his manner was humble—actually humble—the usual mocking undertone in his voice was missing. ‘Really I’m awfully sorry to have caused you annoyance; it was unpardonable.’
Constance turned toward him.
‘Yes, Tony, I think it was. Your position does not give you the right to insult my guests.’
Tony stiffened slightly.
‘I acknowledge that I insulted him, and I’m sorry. But he insulted me, for the matter of that. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, any more than he liked the way I looked at him.’
‘There is a certain deference, Tony, which an officer in the Royal Italian Army has a right to expect from a donkey-driver.’
Tony shrugged.
‘It is a difficult position to hold, Miss Wilder. A donkey-driver, I find, plays the same accommodating rôle as the family watch-dog. You pat him when you choose; you kick him when you choose; and he is supposed to swallow both attentions with equal grace.’
‘You should have chosen another profession.’
‘Naturally, I was not flattered to find that your real reason for staying at home to-day, was that you were expecting more entertaining callers.’
‘Is there any use in discussing it further? I am not going to climb any more mountains, and I shall not, as I told you, need a donkey-man again.’
‘Then I’m discharged?’
‘If you wish to put it so. You must see for yourself that the play has gone far enough. However, it has been amusing, and we will at least part friends.’
She held out her hand; it was a mark of definite dismissal rather than a token of friendly forgiveness.
Tony bowed over her hand in perfect mimicry of the lieutenant’s manner. ‘Signorina, addio!’ He gravely raised it to his lips.
She snatched her hand away quickly and without glancing at him turned toward the house. He let her cross half the terrace, then he called softly—
‘Signorina!’
She kept on without pausing. He took a quick step after.
‘Signorina, a moment!’
She half turned.
‘Well?’
‘I beg of you—one little favour. There are two American ladies expected at the Hotel du Lac and I thought—perhaps—would you mind writing me a letter of recommendation?’
Constance turned back without a word and walked into the house.
Mr. Wilder’s conversation at dinner that night was of the day’s excursion and Tony. He was elated, enthusiastic, glowing. Mountain-climbing was the most interesting pursuit in the world; he would begin to-morrow and exhaust the Alps. And as for Tony—his intelligence, his discretion, his cleverness—there never had been such a guide. Constance listened silently, her eyes on her plate. At another time it might have occurred to her that her father’s enthusiasm was excessive, but to-night she was occupied with her thoughts, and she had no reason in the world to suspect him of guile. She decided, however, to postpone the announcement of Tony’s dismissal; to-morrow mountain-climbing might look less alluring.
Dinner over, Mr. Wilder, with a tired if satisfied sigh, dropped into a chair to finish his reading of the London Times. He no longer skimmed his paper lightly as in the days when papers were to be had hot at any hour. He read it carefully, painstakingly, from the first advertisement to the last obituary; and he laid it down in the end with a disappointed sigh that there were not more residential properties for hire, that the day’s death list was so meagre.
Miss Hazel settled herself to her knitting. She was making a rainbow shawl of seven colours and an intricate pattern, and she had to count her stitches; conversation was impossible. Constance, vaguely restless, picked up a book and laid it down, and finally sauntered out to the terrace with no thought in the world but to see the moon rise over the mountains.
As she approached the parapet she became aware that some one was lounging on the water-steps smoking a cigarette. The smoker rose politely but ventured no remark.
‘Is that you, Giuseppe?’ she asked in Italian.
‘No, signorina. It is I—Tony. I am waiting for orders.’
‘For orders!’ There was astonishment as well as indignation in her tone. ‘I thought I made it clear——’
‘That I was discharged? Yes, signorina. But I have been so fortunate as to find another place. The Signor Papa has engage me. I go wif him; we climb all ze mountain around.’ He waved his hand largely to comprise the whole landscape. ‘I sink perhaps it is better so—for the Signor Papa and me to go alone. Mountain-climbing is too hard; zere is too much fatigue, signorina, for you.’
He bowed humbly and deferentially, and retired to the steps and his cigarette.
CHAPTER XII
Half-past six on the following morning found Constance and her father rising from the breakfast table, and Tony turning in at the gate. Constance’s nod of greeting was barely perceptible, and her father’s eye contained a twinkle as he watched her. Tony studied her mountain-climbing costume with an air of concern.
‘You go wif us, signorina?’ His expression was blended of surprise and disapproval, but in spite of himself his tone was triumphant. ‘You say to me yesterday you no want to climb any more mountain.’
‘But zis mountain to-day too long, too high. You get tired, signorina. Perhaps anozzer day we take li’l’ baby mountain, zen you can go.’
‘I am going to-day.’
‘It is not possible, signorina. I have not brought ze donk’.’
‘Oh, I’m going to walk.’
‘As you please, signorina.’
He sighed patiently. Then he looked up and caught her eye. They both laughed.
‘Signorina,’ he whispered, ‘I ver’ happy to-day. Zat Costantina she more kind. Yesterday ver’ unkind; I go home ver’ sad. But to-day I sink——’
‘Yes?’
‘I sink after all maybe she like me li’l’ bit.’
Giuseppe rowed the three climbers a mile or so down the lake and set them ashore at the base of their mountain. They started up gaily and had accomplished half their journey before they thought of being tired. Tony surpassed himself; if he had been entertaining the day before he was doubly so now. His spirits were bubbling over and contagious. He and Constance acted like two children out of school. They ran races and talked to the peasants in the wayside cottages. They drove a herd of goats for half a mile while the goatherd strolled behind and smoked Tony’s cigarettes. Constance took a water-jar from a little girl they met coming from the fountain and endeavoured to balance it on her own head, with the result that she nearly drowned both herself and the child.
They finally stopped for luncheon in a grove of chestnut trees with sheep nibbling on the hill-side below them and a shepherd boy somewhere out of sight playing on a mouth organ. It should have been a flute, but they were in a forgiving mood. Constance this time did her share of the work. She and Tony together spread the cloth and made the coffee while her father fanned himself and looked on. If Mr. Wilder had any unusual thoughts in regard to the donkey-man, they were at least not reflected in his face.
When they had finished their meal Tony spread his coat under a tree.
‘Signorina,’ he said, ‘perhaps you li’l’ tired? Look, I make nice place to sleep. You lie down and rest while ze Signor Papa and me, we have li’l’ smoke. Zen after one, two hours I come call you.’
Constance very willingly accepted the suggestion. They had walked five uphill miles since morning. It was two hours later that she opened her eyes to find Tony bending over her. She sat up and regarded him sternly. He had the grace to blush.
‘Tony, did you kiss my hand?’
‘Scusi, signorina. I ver’ sorry to wake you, but it is tree o’clock and ze Signor Papa he say we must start just now or we nevair get to ze top.’
‘Answer my question.’
‘Signorina, I cannot tell to you a lie. It is true, I forget I am just poor donkey-man. I play li’l’ game. You sleeping beauty; I am ze prince. I come to wake you. Just one kiss I drop on your hand—one ver’ little kiss, signorina.’
Constance assumed an air of indignant reproof, but in the midst of it she laughed.
‘I wish you wouldn’t be so funny, Tony; I can’t scold you as much as you deserve. But I am angry just the same, and if anything like that ever happens again I shall be very very angry.’
‘Signorina, I would not make you very very angry for anysing. As long as I live nosing like zat shall happen again. No, nevair, I promise.’
They plunged into a pine wood and climbed for another two hours, the summit always vanishing before them like a mirage. At the end of that time they were apparently no nearer their goal than when they had started. They had followed first one path, then another, until they had lost all sense of direction, and finally when they came to a place where three paths diverged, they had to acknowledge themselves definitely lost. Mr. Wilder elected one path, Tony another, and Constance sat down on a rock.
‘I’m not going any farther,’ she observed.
‘You can’t stay here all night,’ said her father.
‘Well, I can’t walk over this mountain all night. We don’t get anywhere; we merely move in circles. I don’t think much of the guide you engaged. He doesn’t know his way.’
‘He wasn’t engaged to know his way,’ Tony retorted. ‘He was engaged to wear earrings and sing Santa Lucia.’
Constance continued to sit on her rock while Tony went forward on a reconnoitring expedition. He returned in ten minutes with the information that there was a shepherd’s hut not very far off with a shepherd inside who would like to be friendly. If the signorina would deign to ask some questions in the Italian language which she spoke so fluently, they could doubtless obtain directions as to the way home.
They found the shepherd, the shepherdess and four little shepherds eating their evening polenta in an earth-floored room, with half a dozen chickens and the family pig gathered about them in an expectant group. They rose politely and invited the travellers to enter. It was an event in their simple lives when foreigners presented themselves at the door.
Constance commenced amenities by announcing that she had been walking on the mountain since sunrise and was starving. Did they by chance have any fresh milk?
‘Starving! Madonna mia, how dreadful!’ Madame held up her hands. But yes, to be sure they had fresh milk. They kept four cows. That was their business—turning milk into cheese and selling it on market day in the village. Also they had some fresh mountain strawberries which Beppo had gathered that morning—perhaps they too might be pleasing to the signorina?
Constance nodded affirmatively, and added, with her eyes on the pig, that it might be pleasanter to eat outside where they could look at the view. She became quite gay again over what she termed their afternoon tea-party, and her father had to remind her most insistently that if they wished to get down before darkness overtook them they must start at once. An Italian twilight is short. They paid for the food and presented a lira apiece to the children, leaving them silhouetted against the sky in a bobbing row shouting musical farewells.
Their host led them through the woods and out on to the brow of the mountain in order to start them down by the right path. He regretted that he could not go all the way, but the sheep had still to be brought in for the night. At the parting he was garrulous with directions.
The easiest way to get home now would be straight down the mountain to Grotta del Monte—he pointed out the brown-tiled roofs of a village far below them—there they could find donkeys or an ox-cart to take them back. It was nine kilometres to Valedolmo. They had come quite out of their way; if they had taken the right path in the morning they would have reached the top, where the view was magnificent—truly magnificent. It was a pity to miss it. Perhaps some other day they would like to come again and he himself would be pleased to guide them. He shook hands and wished them a pleasant journey. They would best hurry a trifle, he added, for darkness came fast, and when one got caught on the mountain at night—he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Tony—one needed a guide who knew his business.
They had walked for ten minutes when they heard some one shouting behind and found a young man calling to them to wait. He caught up with them and breathlessly explained.
Pasquale had told him that they were foreigners from America who were climbing the mountain for diversion and who had lost their way. He was going down to the village himself and would be pleased to guide them.
He fell into step beside Constance and commenced asking questions, while Tony, as the path was narrow, perforce fell behind. Occasionally Constance translated, but usually she laughed without translating, and Tony, for the twentieth time, found himself hating the Italian language.
The young man’s question’s were refreshingly ingenuous. He was curious about America, since he was thinking, he said, of becoming an American himself some day. He knew a man once who had gone to America to live and had made a fortune there—but yes, a large fortune—ten thousand lire in four years. Perhaps the signorina knew him—Giuseppe Motta; he lived in Buenos Aires. And what did it look like—America? How was it different from Italy?
Constance described the sky-scrapers in New York.
His wonder was intense. A building twenty stories high! Dio mio! He should hate to mount himself up all those stairs. Were the buildings like that in the country too? Did the shepherds live in houses twenty stories high?
‘Oh no,’ she laughed. ‘In the country the houses are just like these, only they are made of wood instead of stone.’
‘Of wood?’ He opened his eyes. ‘But, signorina, do they never burn?’
He had another question to ask. He had been told—though of course he did not believe it—that the Indians in America had red skins.
Constance nodded yes. His eyes opened wider.
‘Truly red like your coat?’ with a glance at her scarlet golf jacket.
‘Not quite,’ she admitted.
‘But how it must be diverting,’ he sighed, ‘to travel the world over and see different things.’ He fell silent and trudged on beside her, the wanderlust in his eyes.
It was almost dark when they reached the big arched gateway that led into the village. Here their ways parted and they paused for farewell.
‘Signorina,’ the young man said suddenly, ‘take me with you back to America. I will prune your olive trees, I will tend your vines. You can leave me in charge when you go on your travels.’
She shook her head with a laugh.
‘But I have no vines; I have no olive trees. You would be homesick for Italy.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Then good-bye. You, signorina, will go around the world and see many sights, while I, for travel, shall ride on a donkey to Valedolmo.’
He shook hands all around and with the grace of a prince accepted two of Tony’s cigarettes. His parting speech showed him a fatalist.
‘What will be, will be. There is a girl——’ he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the village. ‘If I go to America then I cannot stay behind and marry Maria. So perhaps it is planned for the best. You will find me, signorina, when next you come to Italy, still digging the ground in Grotta del Monte.’
As he swung away Tony glanced after him with a suggestion of malice, then he transferred his gaze to the empty gateway.
‘I see no one else with whom you can talk Italian. Perhaps for ten minutes you will deign to speak English with me?’
‘I am too tired to talk,’ she threw over her shoulder as she followed her father through the gate.
They plunged into a tangle of tortuous paved streets, the houses pressing each other as closely as if there were not all the outside world to spread in. Grotta del Monte is built on a slope and its streets are in reality long narrow flights of stairs all converging in the little piazza. The moon was not yet up, and aside from an occasional flickering light before a madonna’s shrine, the way was black.
‘Signorina, take my arm. I’m afraid maybe you fall.’
Tony’s voice was humbly persuasive. Constance laughed and laid her hand lightly on his arm. Tony dropped his own hand over hers and held her firmly. Neither spoke until they came to the piazza.
‘Signorina,’ he whispered, ‘you make me ver’ happy to-night.’
She drew her hand away.
‘I’m tired, Tony. I’m not quite myself.’
‘No, signorina, yesterday I sink maybe you not yourself, but to-day you ver’ good, ver’ kind—jus’ your own self ze way you ought to be.’
The piazza, after the dark, narrow streets that led to it, seemed bubbling with life. The day’s work was finished and the evening’s play had begun. In the centre, where a fountain splashed into a broad bowl, groups of women and girls with copper water-jars were laughing and gossiping as they waited their turns. One side of the square was flanked by the imposing façade of a church with the village saint on a pedestal in front; the other side, by a cheerfully inviting osteria with tables and chairs set into the street and a glimpse inside of a blazing hearth and copper kettles.
Mr. Wilder headed in a straight line for the nearest chair and dropped into it with an expression of permanence. Constance followed, and they held a colloquy with a bowing host. He was vague as to the finding of carriage or donkeys, but if they would accommodate themselves until after supper there would be a diligence along which would take them back to Valedolmo.
‘How soon will the diligence arrive?’ asked Constance.
The man spread out his hands.
‘It is due in three-quarters of an hour, but it may be early and it may be late. It arrives when God and the driver wills.’
‘In that case,’ she laughed, ‘we will accommodate ourselves until after supper—and we have appetites! Please bring everything you have.’
They supped on minestra and fritto misto washed down with the red wine of Grotta del Monte, which, their host assured them, was famous through all the country. He could not believe that they had never heard of it in Valedolmo. People sent for it from far off, even from Verona.
They finished their supper and the famous wine, but there was still no diligence. The village also had finished its supper and was drifting in family groups into the piazza. The moon was just showing above the house-tops, and its light, combined with the blazing braziers before the cook-shops, made the square a patchwork of brilliant high-lights and black shadows from deep-cut doorways. Constance sat up alertly and watched the people crowding past. Across from the inn an itinerant show had established itself on a rudely improvised stage, with two flaring torches which threw their light half across the piazza, and turned the spray of the fountain into an iridescent shower. The gaiety of the scene was contagious. Constance rose insistently.
‘Come, Dad; let’s go over and see what they’re doing.’
‘No, thank you, my dear. I prefer my chair.’
‘Oh, Dad, you’re so phlegmatic!’
‘But I thought you were tired.’
‘I’m not any more; I want to see the play.—You come then, Tony.’
Tony rose with an elaborate sigh.
‘As you please, signorina,’ he murmured obediently. An onlooker would have thought Constance cruel in dragging him away from his well-earned rest.
They made their way across the piazza and mounted the church steps behind the crowd where they could look across obliquely to the little stage. A clown was dancing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy, while a woman in a tawdry pink satin evening gown beat an accompaniment on a drum. It was a very poor play with very poor players, and yet it represented to these people of Grotta del Monte something of life, of the big outside world which they in their little village would never see. Their upturned faces touched by the moonlight and the flare of the torches contained a look of wondering eagerness—the same look that had been in the eyes of the young peasant when he had begged to be taken to America.
The two stood back in the shadow of the doorway watching the people with the same interest that the people were expending on the stage. A child had been lifted to the base of the saint’s pedestal in order to see, and in the excitement of a duel between two clowns he suddenly lost his balance and toppled off. His mother snatched him up quickly and commenced covering the hurt arm with kisses to make it well.
Constance laughed.
‘Isn’t it queer,’ she asked, ‘to think how different these people are from us and yet how exactly the same. Their way of living is absolutely foreign, but their feelings are just like yours and mine.’
He touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on the step below them. It was the young peasant again who had guided them down the mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but Maria. She leaned toward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. Their interest in the play was purely a pretence, and both of them knew it.
Tony laughed softly and echoed her words.
‘Yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine.’
He slipped his arm around her.
Constance drew back quickly.
‘I think,’ she remarked, ‘that the diligence has come.’
‘Oh, hang the diligence!’ Tony growled. ‘Why couldn’t it have been five minutes late?’
They returned to the inn to find Mr. Wilder already on the front seat, and obligingly holding the reins, while the driver occupied himself with a glass of the famous wine. The diligence was a roomy affair of four seats and three horses. Behind the driver were three Italians gesticulating violently over local politics; a new sindaco was imminent. Behind these were three black-hooded nuns covertly interested in the woman in the pink evening gown. And behind the three, occupying the exact centre of the rear seat, was a fourth nun with the portly bearing of a Mother Superior. She was very comfortable as she was, and did not propose to move. Constance climbed up on one side of her and Tony on the other.
‘We are well chaperoned,’ he grumbled, as they jolted out of the piazza. ‘I always did think that the Church interfered too much with the rights of individuals.’
Constance, in a spirit of friendly expansiveness, proceeded to pick up an acquaintance with the nuns, and the four black heads were presently bobbing in unison, while Tony, in gloomy isolation at his end of the seat, folded his arms and stared at the road. The driver had passed through many villages that day and had drunk many glasses of famous wine; he cracked his whip and sang as he drove. They rattled in and out of stone-paved villages, along open stretches of moonlit road, past villas and olive groves. Children screamed after them, dogs barked, Constance and her four nuns were very vivacious, and Tony’s gloom deepened with every mile.
They had covered three-quarters of the distance when the diligence was brought to a halt before a high stone wall and a solid barred gate. The nuns came back to the present with an excited cackling. Who would believe they had reached the convent so soon! They made their adieus and ponderously descended, their departure accelerated by Tony who had become of a sudden alertly helpful. As they started again he slid along into the Mother Superior’s empty seat.
‘What were we saying when the diligence interrupted?’ he inquired.
‘I don’t remember, Tony, but I don’t want to talk any more; I’m tired.’
‘You tired, signorina? Lay your head on my shoulder and go to sleep.’
‘Tony, please behave yourself. I’m simply too tired to make you do it.’
He reached over and took her hand. She did not try to withdraw it for two—three minutes; then she shot him a sidewise glance. ‘Tony,’ she said, ‘don’t you think you are forgetting your place?’
‘No, signorina, I am just learning it.’
‘Let go my hand.’
He gazed pensively at the moon and hummed Santa Lucia under his breath.
‘Tony! I shall be angry with you.’
‘I shall be ver’ sorry for zat, signorina. I do not wish to make you angry, but I sink—perhaps you get over it.’
‘You are behaving abominably to-day, Tony. I shall never stay alone with you again.’
‘Signorina, look at zat moon up dere. Is it not ver’ bright? When I look at zat moon I have always beautiful toughts about how much I love Costantina.’
An interval followed during which neither spoke. The driver’s song was growing louder and the horses were galloping. The diligence suddenly rounded a curved cliff on two wheels. Constance lurched against him; he caught her and held her. Her lips were very near his; he kissed her softly.
She moved to the far end of the seat and faced him with flushed cheeks. ‘I thought you were a gentleman!’
‘I used to be, signorina; now I am only poor donkey-man.’
‘I shall never speak to you again. You can climb as many mountains as you wish with my father, but you can’t have anything more to do with me.’
‘Scusi, signorina. I—I did not mean to. It was just an accident, signorina.’
Constance turned her back and stared at the road.
‘It was not my fault. Truly it was not my fault. I did not wish to kiss you—no nevair. But I could not help it. You put your head too close.’
She raised her eyes and studied the mountain-top.
‘Signorina, why you treat me so cruel?’
Her back was inflexible.
‘I am desolate. If you forgive me zis once I will nevair again do a sing so wicked. Nevair, nevair, nevair.’
Constance continued her inspection of the mountain-top. Tony leaned forward until he could see her face.
‘Signorina,’ he whispered, ‘jus’ give me one li’l’ smile to show me you are not angry for ever.’
The stage had stopped and Mr. Wilder was climbing down, but Constance’s gaze was still fixed on the sky, and Tony’s eyes were on her.
‘What’s the matter, Constance, have you gone to sleep? Aren’t you going to get out?’
She came back with a start.
‘Are we here already?’
There was a suspicion of regret in her tone which did not escape Tony.
At the Villa Rosa gates he wished them a humbly deferential good night, but with a smile hovering about the corners of his mouth. Constance made no response. As he strode off, however, she turned her head and looked after him. He turned too and caught her. He waved his hand with a laugh, and took up his way, whistling Santa Lucia in double time.
CHAPTER XIII
Three days passed in which Mr. Wilder and Tony industriously climbed, and in which nothing of consequence passed between Constance and Tony. If she happened to be about when the expeditions either started or came to an end (and for one reason or another she usually was) she ignored him entirely; and he ignored her, except for an occasional mockingly deferential bow. He appeared to extract as much pleasure from the excursions as Mr. Wilder, and he asked for no extra compensation by the way.
It was Tuesday again, just a week and a day since the young American had dropped over the wall of Villa Rosa asking for the garden of the prince. Tony and Mr. Wilder were off on a trip; Miss Hazel and Constance on the point of sitting down to afternoon tea—there were no guests to-day—when the gardener from the Hotel du Lac appeared with a message from Nannie Hilliard. She and her aunt had arrived half an hour before, which was a good two days earlier than they were due. Constance read the note with a clouded brow and silently passed it to Miss Hazel. The news was not so entirely welcome as under other circumstances it would have been. Nannie Hilliard was both perspicacious and fascinating, and Constance foresaw that her presence would tangle further the already tangled plot of the little comedy which was unfolding itself at Villa Rosa. But Miss Hazel, divining nothing of comedies or plots, was thrown into a pleasant flutter by the news. Guests were a luxury which occurred but seldom in the quiet monotony of Valedolmo.
‘We must call on them at once and bring them back to the house.’
‘I suppose we must.’ Constance agreed with an uncordial sigh.
Fifteen minutes later they were on their way to the Hotel du Lac, while Elizabetta, on her knees in the villa guest-room, was vigorously scrubbing the mosaic floor.
Gustavo hurried out to meet them. He was plainly in a flutter; something had occurred to upset the usual suavity of his manners.
‘Si, signorina, in ze garden—ze two American ladies—having tea. And you are acquaint wif ze family; all ze time you are acquaint wif zem, and you never tell me!’ There was mystification and reproach in his tone. Constance eyed him with a degree of mystification on her side.
‘I am acquainted with a number of families that I have never told you about,’ she observed.
‘Scusi, signorina,’ he stammered; and immediately, ‘Tony, zat donk’-man, what you do wif him?’
‘Oh, he and my father are climbing Monte Brione to-day.’
‘What time zay come home?’
‘About seven o’clock, I fancy.
‘Ze signora and ze signorina—zay come two days before zay are expect.’ And he was clearly aggrieved by the fact.
Constance’s mystification increased; she saw not the slightest connexion.
‘I suppose, Gustavo, you can find them something to eat even if they did come two days before they were expected?’
The two turned toward the arbour, but Constance paused for a moment and glanced back with a shade of mischief in her eye.
‘By the way, Gustavo, that young man who taught the parrot English has gone?’
Gustavo rolled his eyes to the sky and back to her face. She understood nothing; was there ever a muddle like this?
‘Si, signorina,’ he murmured confusedly, ‘ze yong man is gone.’
Nannie caught sight of the visitors first, and with a start which nearly upset the tea table, came running forward to meet them; while her aunt, Mrs. Eustace, followed more placidly. Nannie was a big wholesome outdoor girl of a purely American type. She waited for no greetings; she had news to impart.
‘Constance, Miss Hazel! I’m so glad to see you—what do you think? I’m engaged!’
Miss Hazel murmured incoherent congratulations, and tried not to look as shocked as she felt. In her day, no lady would have made so delicate an announcement in any such off-hand manner as this. Constance received it in the spirit in which it was given.
‘Who’s the man?’ she inquired, as she shook hands with Mrs. Eustace.
‘You don’t know him—Harry Eastman, a friend of Jerry’s. Jerry doesn’t know it yet, and I had to confide in some one. Oh, it’s no secret; Harry cabled home—he wanted to get it announced so I couldn’t change my mind. You see he only had a three weeks’ vacation; he took a fast boat, landed at Cherbourg, followed us the whole length of France, and caught us in Lucerne just after Jerry had gone. I couldn’t refuse him after he’d taken such a lot of trouble. That’s what detained us: we had expected to come a week ago. And now——’ by a rapid change of expression she became tragic.—‘We’ve lost Jerry Junior!’
‘Lost Jerry Junior!’ Constance’s tone was interested. ‘What has become of him?’
‘We haven’t an idea. He’s been spirited off—vanished from the earth and left no trace. Really, we’re beginning to be afraid he’s been captured by brigands. That head waiter, that Gustavo, knows where he is, but we can’t get a word out of him. He tells a different story every ten minutes. I looked in the register to see if by chance he’d left an address there, and what do you think I found?’
‘Oh!’ said Constance; there was a world of illumination in her tone. ‘What did you find?’ she asked, hastily suppressing every emotion but polite curiosity.
‘“Abraham Lincoln” in Jerry’s hand-writing!’
‘Really!’ Constance dimpled irrepressibly. ‘You are sure Jerry wrote it?’
‘It was his writing; and I showed it to Gustavo, and what do you think he said?’
Constance shook her head.
‘He said that Jerry had forgotten to register, that that was written by a Hungarian nobleman who was here last week—imagine a Hungarian nobleman named Abraham Lincoln!’
Constance dropped into one of the little iron chairs and bowed her head on the back and laughed.
‘Perhaps you can explain?’ There was a touch of sharpness in Nannie’s tone.
‘Don’t ever ask me to explain anything Gustavo says; the man is not to be believed under oath.’
‘But what’s become of Jerry?’
‘Oh, he’ll turn up.’ Constance’s tone was comforting. ‘Aunt Hazel,’ she called. Miss Hazel and Mrs. Eustace, their heads together over the tea table, were busily making up three months’ dropped news. ‘Do you remember the young man I told you about who popped into our garden last week? That was Jerry Junior!’
‘Then you’ve seen him?’ said Nannie.
Constance related the episode of the broken wall—the sequel she omitted. ‘I hadn’t seen him for six years,’ she added apologetically, ‘and I didn’t recognize him. Of course if I’d dreamed——’
Nannie groaned.
‘And I thought I’d planned it so beautifully!’
‘Planned what?’
‘I suppose I might as well tell you since it’s come to nothing. We hoped—that is, you see—I’ve been so worried for fear Jerry——’ She took a breath and began again. ‘You know, Constance, when it comes to getting married, a man has no more sense than a two-year child. So I determined to pick out a wife for Jerry, myself, one I would like to have for a sister. I’ve done it three times and he simply wouldn’t look at them; you can’t imagine how stubborn he is. But when I found we were coming to Valedolmo, I said to myself, now this is my opportunity; I will have him marry Connie Wilder.’
‘You might have asked my permission.’
‘Oh, well, Jerry’s a dear; next to Harry you couldn’t find any one nicer. But I knew the only way was not to let him suspect. I thought, you see, that you were still staying at the hotel; I didn’t know you’d taken a villa, so I planned for him to come to meet us three days before we really expected to get here. I thought in the meantime, being stranded together in a little hotel, you’d surely get acquainted—Jerry’s very resourceful that way—and with all this beautiful Italian scenery about, and nothing to do——’
‘I see!’ Constance’s tone was somewhat dry.
‘But nothing happened as I had planned. You weren’t here, he was bored to death, and I was detained longer than I meant. We got the most pathetic letter from him the second day, saying there was no one but the head waiter to talk to, nothing but an india-rubber tree to look at, and if we didn’t come immediately, he’d do the Dolomites without us. Then finally, just as we were on the point of leaving, he sent a telegram saying: “Don’t come. Am climbing mountains. Stay there till you hear from me.” But being already packed, we came, and this is what we find——’ She waved her hand over the empty grove.
‘It serves you right; you shouldn’t deceive people.’
‘It was for Jerry’s good—and yours too. But what shall we do? He doesn’t know we’re here and he has left no address.’
‘Come out to the villa and visit us till he comes to search for you.’
Constance could hear her aunt delivering the same invitation to Mrs. Eustace, and she perforce repeated it, though with the inward hope that it would be declined. She had no wish that Tony and her father should return from their trip to find a family party assembled on the terrace. The adventure was not to end with any such tame climax as that. To her relief they did decline, at least for the night; they could make no definite plans until they had heard from Jerry. Constance rose upon this assurance and precipitated their leave-takings; she did not wish her aunt to press them to change their minds.
‘Good-bye, Mrs. Eustace, good-bye, Nannie; we’ll be around to-night to take you sailing—provided there’s any breeze.’
She nodded and dragged her aunt off; but as they were entering the arbour a plan for further complicating matters popped into her head, and she turned back to call—
‘You are coming to the villa to-morrow, remember, whether Jerry Junior turns up or not. I’ll write a note and invite him too—Gustavo can give it to him when he comes, and you needn’t bother any more about him.’
They found Gustavo hovering omnivorously in the courtyard, hungering for news; Constance summoned him to her side.
‘Gustavo, I am going to send you a note to-night for Mr. Jerymn Hilliard. You will see that it gets to him as soon as he arrives?’
‘Meestair Jayreem Ailyar?’ Gustavo stared.
‘Yes, the brother of the signorina who came to-day. He is expected to-morrow or perhaps the day after.’
‘Scusi, signorina. You—you acquaint wif him?’
‘Yes, certainly. I have known him for six years. Don’t forget to deliver the note; it’s important.’
They raised their parasols and departed, while Gustavo stood in the gateway bowing. The motion was purely mechanical; his thoughts were labouring elsewhere.
CHAPTER XIV
Constance occupied herself upon their return to Villa Rosa in writing the letter to Jerry Junior. It had occurred to her that this was an excellent chance to punish him, and it was the working philosophy of her life that a man should always be punished when opportunity presented. Tony had been entirely too unconcerned during the past few days; he needed a lesson. She spent three-quarters of an hour in composing her letter, and tore up two false starts before she was satisfied. It did not contain the slightest hint that she knew the truth, and—considered in this light—it was likely to have a chastening effect. The letter ran—