At five, hatted and cloaked, she was gently shaking Eugenia and saying, "I"m so sorry to bother you, but do you happen to have some money on hand? I"ve been worrying about Father for some time. It"s so long since I"ve been back to straighten out the household for him. I"ve just decided to get off on the early morning train. I ought to go to see Jeanne too. It"s past my regular time for making her a visit. If you could just loan me enough to buy the ticket to Paris? I"ve almost enough as it is, but I must leave some for Miss Oldham and my _pension_."
How kind Eugenia had been! How discreet and uninquisitive! She reached under her pillow, pulled out her gold-meshed purse with the ridiculously large sum in cash she always carried with her, and gave her a five-hundred-lira note together with a kiss on each cheek. "When will you be back, Marise?"
"Oh, I don"t know. I don"t know. Quite a long time. I may--I shall probably not come back at all. It won"t be worth while. Mme. de la Cueva will soon be in Paris again. Good-by, Eugenia dear. You"ll be soon coming north, too, won"t you?"
"Oh, I dare say," said Eugenia, "if it gets too hot here."
Going down the hall, silent and empty in the dawn, Marise stopped for an instant before his door. For an instant she was forced to think of him, the thought like a weakening potion. She stared hard at his door, her hands pressed tightly together, trembling from head to foot. She was going away. She would never see him again. She turned back towards her own room. She could not go. She ran desperately down the stairs, sick at the idea of what love is. She had almost been caught. She heard the steel jaws snap shut as she fled.
CHAPTER LI
"Yes," said Eugenia at the breakfast table, "Marise was suddenly called back to France by family matters. She is her widowed father"s housekeeper, you know; and then too, there is an old servant somewhere who brought her up, whom she feels it her duty to go to see every once in a while."
"What"s her address in Paris?" asked Mr. Crittenden urgently.
"I can give that to you, but if you"re thinking of writing her a card it wouldn"t reach her, for she was to go directly on to the south, and I haven"t the least idea what _that_ address is. Some tiny village on the sea-coast, I believe. Or is it in the Pyrenees? But she will be back very soon, almost any day. It"s hardly worth while trying to write her.
She"ll be here before a card could follow her around."
Mr. Crittenden got up, leaving his coffee untouched, and left the breakfast-room in his unceremonious American way, without a sign of decent civility.
Mr. Livingstone looked at Miss Mills eloquently, with a shrug which meant, "What can you expect?"
Eugenia waited till every one, except herself and Mr. Livingstone had left the room, and then said hesitatingly, "Mr. Livingstone, I wonder...." He was on the alert in an instant, surprised at her personal manner. "It"s an outrageously big favor to ask of you, but I don"t know any one else adroit enough to manage it." She paused, reflected and drew back shaking her head, "Oh, no; no! What am I thinking of?"
By this time Mr. Livingstone was in the chair beside her, a.s.suring her warmly that if there was anything, _any_thing he could do to be of service--"I shall consider it an honor, Miss Mills, I a.s.sure you, an _honor_!"
Miss Mills let her blue eyes rest on his deeply, as if sounding the depths of his sincerity, and then, with a yielding gesture of abandon, decided to trust him, "I"ve been foolish, and I"m so afraid I shall have trouble unless you can help me. Promise me you won"t tell Mlle.
Vallet. Or _any_ one."
Impa.s.sioned protestations from Mr. Livingstone.
She looked over her shoulder to be sure they were alone, "You know the rule of the Italian government about taking out of Italy any valuable antiquities. They are so afraid that tourists of means will carry off some of the fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture. I _knew_ about it of course, but I"d no idea it was really enforced--those things so seldom are in Europe. And I bought a lovely little antique bas-relief to go over a mantel-piece in my Paris apartment. I had it sent yesterday, up by the Simplon route; it"s too late to get it back and now I"m in mortal terror of what may happen at the Italian frontier. I heard last night the most dreadful tales of what they do to any one who tries to smuggle out such things--not only fines, you know, but lawsuits, lawyers to frighten you--_publicity_!"
She looked very pale and anxious as she explained all this so that Livingstone was deeply touched. But he wondered what she thought he could do about it.
"I"m really ashamed, now I"ve come to the point, to ask you what I thought. But I _will_--and if you think it too preposterous--more than I have any right to--it"s this. To take a pocket full of money (I don"t care _what_ it costs) and go up to the frontier station and when it comes along, bribe it through the inspectors. You see, Mr. Livingstone, it"s something that not everybody could manage, even with ever so much money. But you understand the European mentality so perfectly. It would need to be done with just the right manner.... Oh, no, _no_," she broke off abruptly, getting up from her chair. "What a thing to dream of asking any one to do! What claim have I on your...?"
Livingstone, blinking joyfully, sprang up too, protesting that nothing would amuse and interest him more than such a mission. And for _her_, any mission would be his joy!
"Well, think it over. Let me know to-night. I"m ashamed to have mentioned it," she said in confusion. "I don"t know how I dared. But oh Mr. Livingstone, I am so troubled about it. And I am so alone! No one on whom to...." She had gone, murmuring apologies, touched by his instant response, leaving Livingstone as much moved and agitated as she.
She went through into her own rooms and told Josephine, "Put those manicure things away for the time being. I must go out to do a bit of shopping. But you can have them ready at ten. I"ll be back by that time.
It won"t take me long."
Neale stood, frowning and looking at his watch, waiting for Eugenia to come down from the ladies" dressing-room and have dinner. As he fidgeted about, looking glumly at the brilliant scene about him, he was wondering with inward oaths of exasperation what in h.e.l.l could be the matter with anybody"s clothes and hair after the slight exertion of sitting perfectly still in a cab from the door of the pension to the door of the restaurant. It was not, G.o.d knew, that he was impatient to have her join him. It was because he was in a steady fever of impatience to have everything over, the evening, the day, the night--to put back of him another of those endless, endless days--to be one day nearer to the time when Marise would return.
"_What?_" he said irritably to the smooth-voiced waiter who now approached him with an intimate manner. "Oh, _I_ don"t care which table!"
"Here, sir, is one right by the edge of the terrace, where the view is finest," said the waiter in excellent English. "Perhaps the lady would like a screen. There is occasionally a draught from below."
He hastened to set a small screen, to rearrange fussily the handsome silver and linen on the daintily-set table, to slant the single fine rose in the vase at another angle.
Another waiter, also impeccably polyglot, with gleaming hair, admirably cut clothes, and an insinuating manner, now murmured in Neale"s ear, "What wine, sir?"
Neale answered on a mounting note of irritation, "Oh, I don"t _care_ what wine!"
"We have an excellent Frascati, sir, that is our specialty. Not found everywhere, sir. The ladies usually like it. Or...."
"All right, serve that," said Neale, adding to himself unreasonably, "If you knew so well, why bother me about it?"
The real waiter in charge of his table now arrived in all his majesty, the first one having been but an aide. Neale saw by the earnest expression in his eyes that he intended to make their conference a serious one, and cut him short as he began to call over the possibilities of the menu by a repeated, "All right, that"ll do," before he had had time to do more than mention one sort of fish or one entree, or one variety of fowl.
"There, _that"s_ over!" he said to himself with a long breath of relief as the pained waiter turned away to carry into execution that brutally impromptu order.
Eugenia arrived now, followed by a little stir all over the restaurant, as people turned to pay tribute to her beauty and her toilette. "He can"t help noticing _that_!" she thought happily, her pride and satisfaction showing itself only in an increase of the perfectly unconscious naturalness with which she took her seat.
"Oh, what a beautiful view!" she said in a low tone to Neale, looking down over the cypresses of the Palatine to the city, like a heap of uncut jewels, dully, deeply colored, under the light of the setting sun.
"You know how to choose a table, I see!" she added admiringly, in an intimate tone. She wondered if perhaps he had come out in the afternoon to reserve it. She noticed the screen now, and looked at him gratefully, really touched.
The waiter arrived with the soup.
"Yes, it is a fine view," said Neale, rousing himself. "A very fine view indeed. That"s the Colosseum over there, isn"t it?"
"Yes," said Eugenia, "and that"s the Arch of t.i.tus."
"That"s the one with the awfully bad bas-reliefs, isn"t it?" said Neale.
"Oh, _no_," corrected Eugenia, "the one with the poor sculptures is the arch of Septimius Severus. The arch of t.i.tus is the _good_ one, you know, with the bas-reliefs of the Hebrews."
"Oh, yes, of course. You"re right," admitted Neale.
Eugenia thought to herself triumphantly, "Ah, it"s not only Marise who can talk history with him!"
She was very happy, happier than she ever remembered feeling. Everything had played into her hands. Everything was going perfectly. She had succeeded in getting him into just the sort of restaurant where she could show to the best advantage.
She was eating her soup with a lively appreciation of its excellence and found herself perfectly able to keep up an artistic and historic conversation with Neale; but she was also acutely aware through the pores of her skin that every woman around her was jealously scrutinizing her costume. She expanded joyously, like a cut flower set in water. How _well_ everything was going! Certainly Neale must be aware how he was being envied.
She made a remark about the style of the gigantic statues on St. John Lateran, visible in the distance, and turned her arm slightly so that her sleeve would hang better.
Neale answered the remark about the statues on St. John Lateran and continued to look in that direction as though he were thinking about them.