Part 13 (1/2)
”As usual,” answered Eva. ”Not very well, I suppose.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'MRS. CHURCHILL, LET ME PRESENT TO YOU MR. DAVID ROD'”]
Mademoiselle twisted her handkerchief round her fingers. She was pa.s.sionately fond of music; it seemed to her that her pupil, who played accurately, was not. Pierre also was fond of music, and played with taste. He had not perceived Eva's coldness in this respect simply because he saw no fault in her.
”I want to make up a party for the Deserto,” he went on, ”to lunch there. Do you think Madame Churchill will consent?”
”Probably,” said Eva.
”I hope she will. For when we are abroad together, under the open sky, then it sometimes happens I can stay longer by your side.”
”Yes; we never have very long talks, do we?” remarked Eva, reflectively.
”Do you desire them?” said Pierre, with ardor. ”Ah, if you could know how I do! With me it is one long thirst. Say that you share the feeling, even if only a little; give me that pleasure.”
”No,” said Eva laughing, ”I don't share it at all. Because, if we should have longer talks, you would find out too clearly that I am not clever.”
”Not clever!” said Pierre, with all his heart in his eyes. Then, with his unfailing politeness, he included Mademoiselle. ”She is clever, Mademoiselle?”
”She is good,” answered Mademoiselle, gravely. ”Her heart has a depth--but a depth!”
”I shall fill it all,” murmured Pierre to Eva. ”It is not that I myself am anything, but my love is so great, so vast; it holds you as the sea holds Capri. Some time--some time, you must let me try to tell you!”
Eva glanced at him. Her eyes had for the moment a vague expression of curiosity.
This little conversation had been carried on in French; Mademoiselle spoke no English, and Pierre would have been incapable of the rudeness of excluding her by means of a foreign tongue.
II
The pink villa was indeed a delicious nest, to use the Englishman's phrase. It crowned one of the perpendicular cliffs of Sorrento, its rosy facade overlooking what is perhaps the most beautiful expanse of water in the world--the Bay of Naples. The broad terrace stretched from the drawing room windows to the verge of the precipice; leaning against its strong stone parapet, with one's elbows comfortably supported on the flat top (which supported also several battered G.o.ddesses of marble), enjoying the shade of a lemon-tree set in a great vase of tawny terra-cotta--leaning thus, one could let one's idle gaze drop straight down into the deep blue water below, or turn it to the white line of Naples opposite, s.h.i.+ning under castled heights, to Vesuvius with its plume of smoke, or to beautiful dark Ischia rising from the waves in the west, guarding the entrance to the sea. On each side, close at hand, the cliffs of Sorrento stretched away, tipped with their villas, with their crowded orange and lemon groves. Each villa had its private stairway leading to the beach below; strange dark pa.s.sages, for the most part cut in the solid rock, winding down close to the face of the cliff, so that every now and then a little rock-window can let in a gleam of light to keep up the spirits of those who are descending. For every one does descend: to sit and read among the rocks; to bathe from the bathing-house on the fringe of beach; to embark for a row to the grottos or a sail to Capri.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SORRENTO]
The afternoon which followed the first visit of Philip Dallas to the pink villa found him there a second time; again he was on the terrace with f.a.n.n.y. The plunging sea-birds of the terrace's mosaic floor were partially covered by a large Persian rug, and it was upon this rich surface that the easy-chairs were a.s.sembled, and also the low tea-table, which was of a construction so solid that no one could possibly knock it over. A keen observer had once said that that table was in itself a sufficient indication that f.a.n.n.y's house was furnished to attract masculine, not feminine, visitors (a remark which was perfectly true).
”You are the sun of a system of masculine planets, f.a.n.n.y,” said Dallas.
”After long years, that is how I find you.”
”Oh, Philip--we who live so quietly!”
”So is the sun quiet, I suppose; I have never heard that he howled. Mr.
Gordon-Gray, Mark Ferguson, Pierre de Vernueil, Horace Bartholomew, unknown Americans. Do they come to see Eva or you?”
”They come to see the view--as you do; to sit in the shade and talk. I give very good dinners too,” f.a.n.n.y added, with simplicity.
”O romance! good dinners on the Bay of Naples!”
”Well, you may laugh; but nothing draws men of a certain age--of a certain kind, I mean; the most satisfactory men, in short--nothing draws them so surely as a good dinner delicately served,” announced f.a.n.n.y, with decision. ”Please go and ring for the tea.”
”I don't wonder that they all hang about you,” remarked Dallas as he came back, his eyes turning from the view to his hostess in her easy-chair. ”Your villa is admirable, and you yourself, as you sit there, are the personification of comfort, the personification, too, of gentle, sweet, undemonstrative affectionateness. Do you know that, f.a.n.n.y?”