Part 73 (2/2)

'Yes. But she has been resting since.'

'Don't let me interrupt you,' he said again.

Then he looked at her fingers and their uncertain movements among the silks; at the face bent over the workbasket.

'I want if I can to keep some bad news from my cousin,' he said abruptly.

Lucy started and looked up. He had her face full now, and the lovely entreating eyes.

'My sister is very ill. There has been another crisis. I might be summoned at any time.'

'Oh!'--she said, faltering. Unconsciously she moved a step nearer to him.

In a moment she was all enquiry, and deep, shy sympathy--the old docile Lucy. 'Have you had a letter?' she asked.

'Yes, this morning. I saw her the other day when I pa.s.sed through Rome. She knew me, but she is a wreck. The whole const.i.tution is affected. Sometimes there are intervals, but they get rarer. And each acute attack weakens her seriously.'

'It is terrible--terrible!'

As she stood there before him in her white dress under the twilight, he had a vision of her lying with shut eyes in his chair at Marinata; he remembered the first wild impulse that had bade him gather her, unconscious and helpless, in his arms.

He moved away from her. For something to do, or say, he stooped down to look into her open workbasket.

'Isn't that one of the Nemi terra-cottas!'

He blundered into the question from sheer nervousness, wis.h.i.+ng it unspoken the instant it was out.

Lucy started. She had forgotten. How could she have forgotten! There in a soft bed of many-coloured silks, wrapped tenderly about, yet so as to show the face and crown, was the little Artemis. The others were beneath the tray of the box. But this for greater safety lay by itself, a thin fold of cotton-wool across its face. In that moment of confusion when he had appeared on the _loggia_ she had somehow displaced the cotton-wool without knowing it, and uncovered the head.

'Yes, it is the Artemis,' she said, trying to keep herself from trembling.

Manisty bent without speaking, and took the little thing into his hand. He thought of that other lovelier head--her likeness?--whereof the fragments were at that moment in a corner of his dressing-case, after journeying with him through the mountains.

As for Lucy it was to her as though the little head nestling in his hand must somehow carry there the warmth of her kisses upon it, must somehow betray her. He seemed to hold a fragment of her heart.

'Please let me put it away,' she said hurriedly. 'I must go to Eleanor. It is nearly time for dinner.'

He gave it up silently. She replaced it, smoothed down her silks and her work, and shut the box. His presence, his sombre look, and watching eye, affected her all the time electrically. She had never yet been so near the loss of self-command.

The thought of Eleanor calmed her. As she finished her little task, she paused and spoke again.

'You won't alarm her about poor Miss Manisty, without--without consulting with me?' she said timidly.

He bowed.

'Would you rather I did not tell her at all? But if I have to go?'

'Yes then--then you must.'

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