The Wheat Princess. Jean Webster
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Vivalanti, but the fields had proved too sunny and she had stopped in the shade of the cypresses instead. Even the ruins seemed to be revivified by the warm touch of spring. Blue and white anemones, rose-coloured cyclamen, yellow laburnum, burst from every cranny of the stones. Marcia glanced about with an air of delighted approval. A Pan with his pipes was all that was needed to make the picture complete. She dropped down on the coping of the fountain, and with her chin in her hands gazed dreamily at the moss-bearded merman who, two centuries before, had spouted water from his twisted conch-shell. She was suddenly startled from her reverie by hearing a voice exclaim, ‘Buon giorno, signorina!’ and she looked up quickly to find Paul Dessart.
‘Mr. Dessart!’ she cried in amazement. ‘Where in the world did you come from?’
‘The inn of Sant’ Agapito at Palestrina. Benoit and I are making it the centre of a sketching expedition. We get a sort of hill fever every spring, and when the disease reaches a certain point we pack up and set out for the Sabines.’
‘And how did you manage to find us?’
‘Purely chance,’ he returned more or less truthfully. ‘I picked out this road as a promising field, and when I came to the gateway, being an artist, I couldn’t resist the temptation of coming in. I didn’t know that it was Villa Vivalanti or that I should find you here.’ He sat down on the edge of the fountain and looked about.
‘Well?’ Marcia inquired.
‘I don’t wonder that you wanted to exchange Rome for this! May I make a little sketch, and will you stay and talk to me until it is finished?’
‘That depends upon how long it takes you to make a little sketch. I shall subscribe to no carte-blanche promises.’
He got out a box of water-colours from one pocket of his Norfolk jacket and a large pad from the other, and having filled his cup at the little rush-choked stream which once had fed the fountain, set to work without more ado.
‘I heard from the Roystons this morning,’ said Marcia, presently, and immediately she was sorry that she had not started some other subject. In their former conversations Paul’s relations with his family had never proved a very fortunate topic.
‘Any bad news?’ he inquired flippantly.
‘They will reach Rome in a week or so.’
‘Holy Week—I might have known it! Miss Copley,’ he looked at her appealingly, ‘you know what an indefatigable woman my aunt is. She will make me escort her to every religious function that blessed city offers; it isn’t her way to miss anything.’
Marcia smiled slightly at the picture; it was lifelike.
‘I shall be stopping in Palestrina when they come,’ he added.
She let this observation pass in a disapproving silence.
‘Oh, well,’ he sighed, ‘I’ll stay and tote them around if you think I ought. The Bible says, you know, “Love your relatives and show mercy unto them that despitefully use you.”’
Marcia flashed a sudden laugh and then looked grave.
Paul glanced up at her quickly. ‘I suppose my aunt told you no end of bad things about me?’
‘Was there anything to tell?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve committed the unpardonable sin of preferring art in Rome to coal in Pittsburg.’
He dropped the subject and turned back to his picture, and Marcia sat watching him as he industriously splashed in colour. Occasionally their eyes met when he raised his head, and if his own lingered a moment longer than convention warranted—being an artist, he was excusable, for she was distinctly an addition to the moss-covered fountain. The young man may have prolonged the situation somewhat; in any case, the sun’s rays were beginning to slant when he finally pocketed his colours and presented the picture with a bow. It was a dainty little sketch of a ruined grotto and a broken statue, with the sunlight flickering through the trees on the flower-sprinkled grass.
‘Really, is it for me?’ she asked. ‘It’s lovely, Mr. Dessart; and when I go away from Rome I can remember both you and the villa by it.’
‘When you go away?’ he asked, with an audible note of anxiety in his voice. ‘But I thought you had come to live with your uncle.’
‘Oh, for the present,’ she returned. ‘But I’m going back to America in the indefinite future.’
He breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief.
‘The indefinite future doesn’t bother me. Before it comes you’ll change your mind—everybody does. It’s merely the present I want to be sure of.’
Marcia glanced at him a moment with a half-provocative laugh; and then, without responding, she turned her head and appeared to study the stone village up on the height. She was quite conscious that he was watching her, and she was equally conscious that her pale-blue muslin gown and her rosebud hat formed an admirable contrast to the frowning old merman. When she turned back there was a shade of amusement in her glance. Paul did not speak, but he did not lower his eyes nor in any degree veil his visible admiration. She rose with a half-shrug and brushed back a stray lock of hair that was blowing in her eyes.
‘I’m hungry,’ she remarked in an exasperatingly matter-of-fact tone. ‘Let’s go back and get some tea.’
‘Will Mrs. Copley receive a jacket and knickerbockers?’
‘Mrs. Copley will be delighted. Visitors are a godsend at Villa Vivalanti.’
They passed from the deep shade of the cypresses to the sun-flecked laurel path that skirted the wheat field. As they strolled along, in no great hurry to reach the villa, they laughed and chatted lightly; but the most important things they said occurred in the pauses when no words were spoken. The young man carried his hat in his hand, carelessly switching the branches with it as he passed. His shining light-brown hair—almost the colour of Marcia’s own—lay on his forehead in a tangled mass and stirred gently in the wind. She noted it in an approving sidewise glance, and quickly turned away again lest he should look up and catch her eyes upon him.
In the ilex grove they paused for a moment as the sound of mingled voices reached them from the terrace.
‘Listen,’ Marcia whispered, with her finger on her lips; and as she recognized the tones she made a slight grimace. ‘My two enemies! The Contessa Torrenieri and Mr. Sybert. The contessa has a villa at Tivoli. This is very kind of her, is it not? Nine miles is a long distance just to pay a call.’
As they advanced toward the tea-table, placed under the trees at the end of the terrace, they found an unexpectedly august party—not only the Contessa Torrenieri and the secretary of the Embassy, but the American consul-general as well. The men had evidently but just arrived, as Mrs. Copley was still engaged with their welcome.
‘Mr. Melville, you come at exactly the right time. We are having mushroom ragoût to-night, which, if I remember, is your favourite dish—but why didn’t you bring your wife?’
‘My wife, my dear lady, is at present in Capri and shows no intention of coming home. Your husband, pitying my loneliness, insisted on bringing me out for the night.’
‘I am glad that he did—we shall hope to see you later, however, when Mrs. Melville can come too. Mr. Sybert,’ she added, turning toward the younger man, ‘you can’t know how we miss not having you drop in at all hours of the day. We didn’t realize what a necessary member of the family you had become until we had to do without you.’
Marcia, overhearing this speech, politely suppressed a smile as she presented the young painter. He was included in the general acclaim.
‘This is charming!’ Mrs. Copley declared. ‘I was just complaining to the Contessa Torrenieri that not a soul had visited us since we came out to the villa, and here are three almost before the words are