Part 65 (2/2)

”Tuesday.

”DEAR PERCY.--Let it be as you wish.

”Your loving

”KATE.

”P.S. When shall you be in town? Come and see me.”

She folded and enclosed and addressed the letter; but she did not give it to the waiter to post. It was of too great moment for that. She put it in her pocket; she would herself see it safely despatched.

Well, for a boy, Jim had not done so badly; though, to be sure, his sister did not seem to pay much attention to these delicacies. Her brain was too busy. As she trifled with this thing or that, or sipped a little wine, she said,

”Jim, I know what the dream of your life is--it's to go to a big pheasant-shoot.”

”Oh, is it?” he said, with the scorn born of superior knowledge. ”Not much. I've tried my hand at pheasants. I know what they are. It's all very well for those fellows in the papers to talk about the easy shooting--the slaughter--the tame birds--and all that bosh; fellows who couldn't hit a stuffed c.o.c.katoo at twenty yards. No, thanks; I know what pheasants are--the beasts!”

”Well, what kind of shooting would you really like?” said this indulgent sister.

”I'll tell you,” he said, with his face brightening. ”I should like to have the run of a good rabbit-warren, and to be allowed to wander about entirely by myself, with a gun and a spaniel. No keeper looking on and worrying and criticising--that's my idea.”

”All right,” said she, ”I think I can promise you that.”

”You?” he said, looking at her, and wondering if she had gone out of her wits.

”Yes,” she answered, sweetly. ”Don't you think there will be plenty of rabbits about a place like Petmansworth?”

”And what then?”

”Well, I'm going to marry Sir Percival Miles,” said Miss Kate, with much serene complacency.

CHAPTER XXVII

A REUNION.

Here is a long balcony, shaded by pillared arches, the windows hung with loose blinds of reeds in gray and scarlet. If you adventure out into the hot sunlight, you may look away down the steep and rugged hill, where there are groups of flat-roofed, white houses dotted here and there among the dark palms and olives and arbored vines; and then your eyes naturally turn to the vast extent of s.h.i.+mmering blue sea, with the faint outline of the Italian coast and the peaked Vesuvius beyond. But inside, in the s.p.a.cious, rather bare rooms, it is cooler; and in one of these, at the farther end, stands a young man in front of a piano, striking a chord from time to time, and exercising a voice that does not seem to have lost much of its _timbre_; while there is an exceedingly pretty, gentle-eyed, rather foreign-looking young lady engaged in putting flowers on the central table, which is neatly and primly laid out for four.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_'I have an extremely important letter to send off.'_”]

”Come, Leo,” she says, ”is it not enough? You are in too great a hurry, I believe. Are you jealous of Mr. Doyle? Do you wish to go back at once?

No, no; we must get Mr. Mangan and his bride to make a long stay, before we go over with them to the big towns on the mainland. Will you go out and see if the _Risposta_ is visible yet.”

”What splendid weather for Maurice and Francie, isn't it, Ntoniella?”

said he (for there are other pet names besides the familiar Nina for any one called Antonia). ”I wish we could have had our wedding-day along with theirs. Well, at least we will have our honeymoon trip along with them; and we shall have to be their guides, you know, in Venice and Rome and Florence, for neither of them knows much Italian.”

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