Part 48 (1/2)

The idea that he had only five days in Rome fell on him like a thunderbolt, as though he had had no idea of it till that moment. Had he said he had only five days in Rome?

He walked along, looking up at the green waves of feathery foliage which foamed down over the fawn-colored walls from the verdure of the gardens inside. What a beautiful spot Rome was! He had not begun to appreciate it on his last visit. It was wonderful! Such light! He had never seen such sunlight anywhere.

Ah, here was number a hundred and twenty, a fine great doorway in the wall, with a gleaming bra.s.s plate, marked Pierleoni, at which Neale looked with pleasure. He walked on some distance, as far as he could go and keep the house in view, and, crossing over, walked slowly back. He was not now in the least ashamed of his conduct. By this time it seemed quite natural and suitable to him, just what any one would have done in his place. Of course he wanted to know about his great-uncle. Who would not?

He had made the trip to the end of the street and back perhaps a dozen times, his pulse beating more and more quickly, when from a distance he saw a little door beside the great one open, and a tall girl in a familiar light gray street-dress step out. But she was not alone. Beside her walked a man, a tall, stooped old man with a black coat and a wide-brimmed black felt hat. The girl's hand was on his arm. Neale felt as astonished and grieved as though he had caught his best friend cheating him at cards. It had never occurred to him that she might not be alone! And yet he now remembered that she had said ”we.”

He walked along behind them at a considerable distance, feeling for the first time rather foolish, a sensation which instantly took wings as he saw them, after turning into another street, stop at a door in the wall and ring. Perhaps she was going to leave him there. Neale gave a great start forward.

But perhaps she was going in with him? He halted where he stood, feeling very sick of himself and angrily resolving to turn his back on them and go off about his business. He had never played the born fool so in his life!

But he did not turn his back on them. He stood observing them, while they went through a leave-taking which seemed to him very formal and long-drawn-out; and when the old man went in and the infernal gate actually shut behind him, Neale started forward with a bound.

But he reflected at once that it was too absurd to meet her here, in a quarter of Rome where no business of his could possibly have brought him at that hour. The cautious, adroit thing to do was to walk along behind her at a distance, till she had turned into a thoroughfare with shops, where he might conceivably be strolling. While he was making this sagacious plan, his feet bore him rapidly up beside her, where he took off his hat and said, ”Good morning, Miss Allen,” with a wide smile of satisfaction which he knew must look nothing less than imbecile.

Well, he had done what he had set out to do.

She gave him a ”good morning, Mr. Crittenden,” that showed no surprise, and with great tact began the talk on the only basis which gave him a reasonable claim on her time. ”You want to hear how somebody in Rome knows about your great-uncle Burton, don't you? I'm afraid it's like so many other things that sound mysterious and interesting. It will only be quite flat and commonplace when you really know. It is no more than this. When I was a little girl in America, and then later when I was in college for a couple of years, I was sent to spend my summers in Ashley, visiting an old cousin of my father's.” She looked at him from under her broad-brimmed blue hat, with a mock-regretful air, one eyebrow raised whimsically, and made a little apologetic gesture with her shoulders.

”That's all,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.

”Oh, _no_, it's not all!” Neale cried to himself with intense conviction.

Aloud he said, ”But I want to hear more about what kind of a place it is. You see, to tell the truth, I'd forgotten that I had any Great-uncle Burton. And I never was in Ashley. Think of being in Florence and getting a letter saying that a saw-mill in Vermont has suddenly become yours!”

”I should call it a most nice sort of surprise,” remarked the girl with a quaintly un-English turn of phrase which he had already noticed and thought the most delightful thing in the world.

”And I'm on my way back to America now to see about it.”

”What does that mean--to 'see about it'?” she inquired.

”Oh, sell it, of course.”

She was horrified. ”_Sell_ it? To whom?”

”Oh, to anybody who'll buy it.”

”Sell that darling old house, and those glorious elms. Sell that beautiful leaded-gla.s.s door, with the cool white marble steps leading up to it, and the big peony-bushes, and the syringas and that cold pure spring-water that runs all day and all night in the wooden trough. Sell that home! And to anybody!” She paused where she was, looking at him out of wide, shocked eyes. Neale was profoundly thankful for anything that would make her look straight at him like that.

”But, you see,” he told her, ”I hadn't the least idea about that darling old house, or the elms or the spring-water or anything. I never heard a word about it till this minute. I think the only thing is for you to start in and tell me everything.”

As she hesitated, professing with an outward opening of her palms that she really didn't know exactly where to begin, he prompted her.

”Well, begin at the beginning. How in the world do you get there?”

”Oh, if you want to know from the beginning,” she told him, ”I must tell you at once that you change cars at Hoosick Junction. Always, always, no matter from which direction you approach, you must change cars at Hoosick Junction, and wait an hour or so there.” Seeing on his face a rather strange expression, she feared that he had lost the point of her little pleasantry, and inquired, ”But perhaps it is that you do not know Hoosick Junction.”

”Oh, yes, I know Hoosick Junction all right.” He said it with a long breath of wonder. ”_I_ changed cars at Hoosick Junction to get here!”

”Eh bien, and then a train finally takes you from Hoosick Junction. You sit pressing your little nose against the window, waiting to see the mountains, and when the first one heaves up softly, all blue against the horizon, you feel a happy ache in your throat, and you look harder than ever. And by and by some one calls out 'Shley!' (you know he means Ashley) and you take your little satchel and stumble down the aisle, and the conductor lifts you down the steps and there is dear old Cousin Hetty with her wrinkled face s.h.i.+ning on you. She only gives you a dry little peck on your lips, quick and hard, and says, 'Well, Marise, you got here, I see,' but you feel all over you, _warm_, how glad she is to see you. And you hug her a great deal till she says, 'there! there!' but you know she likes it very much.”

She was talking as she walked, as if her words were set to music, her voice all little ripples, and bright upward and downward swoops like swallows flying, her hands and arms and shoulders and eyebrows acting a delicate pantomime of ill.u.s.tration, the pale, pure olive of her face flushed slightly with her animation. Every time she flashed a quick look up at him to make sure he was not bored, Neale caught his breath. He felt as though he were drinking the strongest kind of wine, he had the half-scared, half-enchanted feeling of a man who knows he is going to get very drunk, and has little idea of what will happen when he does.