Kitabı oku: «The Wheat Princess», sayfa 2

‘She might do worse,’ said his wife. ‘Paul is a nice boy.’

‘Ah—and she might do better. I’ll tell you exactly the man,’ he added, in a burst of enthusiasm, ‘and that is Laurence Sybert.’

The suggestion was met by an amused smile from the ladies and a shrug from the sculptor.

‘My dear James,’ said Mrs. Melville, ‘you may be a very good business man, but you are no match-maker. That is a matter you would best leave to the women. As for your Laurence Sybert, he hasn’t the ghost of a chance—and he doesn’t want it.’

‘I’m doubting he has other fish to fry just now,’ threw out the sculptor.

‘Sybert’s all right,’ said Melville emphatically.

The woman who wrote laughed as she rose. ‘It will be an interesting matter to watch,’ she announced; ‘but you may mark my words that our host is the man.’

CHAPTER II

A carriage rumbled into the stone-paved courtyard of the Palazzo Rosicorelli a good twenty minutes before six o’clock the next evening, and the Copleys descended and climbed the stairs, at peace with Villa Vivalanti and its thirty miles. Though it was still light out of doors, inside the palace, with its deep-embrasured windows and heavy curtains, it was already quite dark. As they entered the long salon the only light in the room came from a seven-branch candlestick on the tea-table, which threw its reflection upon Gerald’s white sailor-suit and little bare knees as he sat back solemnly in a carved Savonarola chair. At the sound of their arrival he wriggled down quickly and precipitated himself against Mrs. Copley.

‘Oh, mamma! Sybert came to tea, an’ I made it; an’ he said it was lots better van Marcia’s tea, an’ he dwank seven cups, an’ I dwank four.’

A chorus of laughter greeted this revelation, and a lazy voice called from the depths of an easy chair, ‘Oh, I say, Gerald, you mustn’t tell such shocking tales, or your mother will never leave me alone with the tea-things again.’ And the owner of the voice pulled himself together and walked across the room ta shake hands with the new-comers.

Laurence Sybert, as he advanced toward his hostess, threw a long thin shadow against the wall. He had a spare, dark, clean-shaven face with deep-set, sullen eyes; he was a delightfully perfected type of the cosmopolitan; it would have taken a second, or very possibly a third, glance to determine his nationality. But if the expression of his face were Italian, Oriental, anything you please, his build was undoubtedly Anglo-Saxon. Further, a certain wiriness beneath his movements proclaimed him, to any one familiar with the loose-hung riders of the plains, unmistakably American.

‘Your son slanders me, Mrs. Copley,’ he said as he held out his hand; ‘I didn’t drink but six, upon my honour.’

‘Hello, Sybert! Anything happened in Rome to-day? What’s the news on the Rialto?’ was Mr. Copley’s greeting.

Marcia regarded him with a laugh as she drew off her gloves and lighted the spirit-lamp.

‘We’ve been away since nine this morning, and here’s Uncle Howard thirsting for news already! What he will do when we really get out of the city, I can’t imagine.’

‘Oh, and so you’ve taken the villa, have you?’

Marcia nodded.

‘And you should see it! It looks like a papal palace. This is the first time that Prince Vivalanti has ever consented to rent it to strangers; it’s his official seat.’

‘Very condescending of him,’ the young man laughed; ‘and do you accept his responsibilities along with the place?’

‘From the fattore’s account I should say that his responsibilities rest but lightly on the Prince of Vivalanti.’

‘Ah—that’s true enough.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Only by hearsay. I know the village; and a more desperate little place it would be hard to find in all the Sabine hills. The people’s love for their prince is tempered by the need of a number of improvements which he doesn’t supply.’

‘I dare say they are pretty poor,’ she conceded; ‘but they are unbelievably picturesque! Every person there looks as if he had just walked out of a water-colour sketch. Even Uncle Howard was pleased, and he has lived here so long that he is losing his enthusiasms.’

‘It is a pretty decent sort of a place,’ Copley agreed, ‘though I have a sneaking suspicion that we may find it rather far. But the rest of the family liked it, and my aim in life–’

‘Nonsense, Uncle Howard! you know you were crazy over it yourself. You signed the lease without a protest. Didn’t he, Aunt Katherine?’

‘I signed the lease, my dear Marcia, at the point of the pistol.’

‘The point of the pistol?’

‘You threatened, if we got a mile—an inch, I believe you said—nearer Rome, you would give a party every day; and if that isn’t the point of a pistol to a poor, worn-out man like me, I don’t know what is.’

‘It would certainly seem like it,’ Sybert agreed. And turning to Marcia, he added, ‘I am afraid that you rule with a very despotic hand, Miss Marcia.’

Marcia’s eyebrows went up a barely perceptible trifle, but she laughed and returned: ‘No, indeed, Mr. Sybert; you are mistaken there. It is not I, but Gerald, who plays the part of despot in the Copley household.’

At this point, Granton, Mrs. Copley’s English maid, appeared in the doorway. ‘Marietta is waiting to give Master Gerald his supper,’ she announced.

Gerald fled to his mother and raised a cry of protest.

‘Mamma, please let me stay up to dinner wif you to-night.’

For a moment Mrs. Copley looked as if she might consent, but catching sight of Granton’s relentless face, she returned: ‘No, my dear, you have had enough festivity for one evening. You must have your tea and go to bed like a good little boy.’

Gerald abandoned his mother and entrenched himself behind Sybert. ‘‘Cause Sybert’s here, an’ I like Sybert,’ he wailed desperately.

But Granton stormed even this fortress. ‘Come, Master Gerald; your supper’s getting cold,’ and she laid a firm hand on his shoulder and marched him away.

‘There’s the real despot,’ laughed Copley. ‘I tremble before Granton myself.’

Pietro appeared with a plate of toasted muffins and the evening mail. Mr. Copley settled himself in a wicker chair, with a pile of letters on the arm at his right; and, as he ran his eyes over them one by one, he tore them in pieces and formed a new pile at his left. They were begging letters for the most part. He received a great many, and this was his usual method of answering them: not that he was an ungenerous man; it was merely a matter of principle with him not to be generous in this particular way.

As he sat disposing of envelope after envelope with vigorous hands, Copley’s appearance suggested a series of somewhat puzzling contrasts: seriousness and humour; sensitiveness and force—an active impulse to forge ahead and accomplish things, a counter-impulse to shrug his shoulders and wonder why. He was a puzzle to most of his friends; at times even one to his wife; but she had accepted his eccentricities along with his millions, and though she did not always understand either his motives of his actions, she made no complaint. To most men a fortune is a blessing. To Copley it was rather in the nature of a curse. He might have amounted to almost anything had he had to work for it; but for the one field of activity which a fortune in America seems to entail upon its owner—that of entering the arena and doubling and tripling it—he was singularly unfitted both by temperament and inclination. In this he differed from his elder brother. And there was one other point in which the two were at variance. Though their father had been in the eyes of the law a just and upright man, still, in the battle of competition, many had fallen that he might stand, and the younger son had grown up with the knowledge that from a humanitarian standpoint the money was not irreproachable. He had the feeling—which his brother characterized as absurd—that with his share of the fortune he would like, in a measure, to make it up to mankind.

Howard Copley’s first move in the game of benefiting humanity had been, not very originally, an attempt at solving the negro problem; but the negroes were ever a leisurely race, and Copley was a man impatient for results. He finally abandoned them to the course of evolution, and engaged in a spasmodic orgy of East Side politics. Becoming disgusted, and failing of an election, he looked aimlessly about for a further object in life. It was at this point that Mrs. Copley breathlessly suggested a year in Paris for the sake of Gerald’s French; the child was only four, but one could not, as she justly pointed out, begin the study of the languages too early. Her husband apathetically consenting, they embarked for Paris by the roundabout route of the Mediterranean, landed in Naples, and there they stayed. He had found a fascinating occupation ready to his hand—that of helping on the work of good government in this still turbulent portion of United Italy. After a year the family drifted to Rome, and settled themselves in the piano nobile of the Palazzo Rosicorelli with something of an air of permanence. Copley was at last thoroughly contented; he had no racial prejudices, and Rome was as fair a field of reform as New York—and infinitely more diverting. If the Italians did not always understand his motives, still they accepted his services with a fair show of gratitude.

As for Mrs. Copley, she had by no means intended their sojourn to be an emigration, but she reflected that her husband had to be amused in some way, and that reforming Italian posterity was perhaps an harmless a way as he could have devised. She settled herself very contentedly to the enjoyment of the somewhat shifting foreign society of the capital, with only an occasional plaintive reference to her friends in New York and to Gerald’s French.

Marcia, leaning back in her chair, watched her uncle dispose of his correspondence with a visible air of amusement. He had a thin nervous face traced with fine lines, a sharply cut jaw, and a mouth which twitched easily into a smile. To-night, however, as he ripped open envelope after envelope, he frowned oftener than he smiled; and presently, as he unfolded one letter, he suppressed a quick exclamation of anger.

‘Read that,’ he said shortly, tossing it to the other man.

Sybert perused it with no visible change of expression, and leaning over, he dropped it into the open grate.

Marcia laughed outright. ‘Your mail doesn’t seem to afford you much satisfaction, Uncle Howard.’

‘A large share of it’s anonymous, and not all of it’s polite.’

‘That is what you must expect if you will hound those poor old beggars to death.’

The two men shot each other a look of rather grim amusement. The letter in question had nothing to do with beggars, but Mr. Copley had no intention of discussing its contents with his niece.

‘I find that the usual reward of virtue in this world is an anonymous letter,’ he remarked, shrugging the matter from his mind and settling himself comfortably to his tea.

The guest refused the cup proffered him.

‘I haven’t the courage,’ he declared, ‘after Gerald’s revelations.’

‘By the way, Sybert,’ said Copley, ‘I have been hearing some bad stories about you to-day. My niece doesn’t like to have me associate with you.’

Marcia looked at her uncle helplessly; when he once commenced teasing there was no telling where he would stop.

‘I am sorry,’ said Sybert humbly. ‘What is the trouble?’

‘She has found out that you are an anarchist.’

Both men laughed, and Marcia flushed slightly.

‘Please, Miss Marcia,’ Sybert begged, ‘give me time to get out of the country before you expose me to the police.’

‘There’s no cause for fear,’ she returned. ‘I didn’t believe the story when I heard it, for I knew that you haven’t energy enough to run away from a bomb, much less throw one. That’s why it surprised me that other people should believe it.’

‘But most people have a better opinion of me than you have,’ he expostulated.

‘No, indeed, Mr. Sybert; I have a better opinion of you than most people. I really consider you harmless.’

The young man laughed and bowed his thanks, while he turned his attention to Mrs. Copley.

‘I hope that Villa Vivalanti will prove more successful than the one in Naples.’

Mrs. Copley looked at him reproachfully. ‘That horrible man! I never think of him without wishing we were safely back in America.’

‘Then please don’t think of him,’ her husband returned. ‘He is where he won’t trouble you any more.’

‘What man?’ asked Marcia, emerging from a dignified silence.

‘Is it possible Miss Marcia has never heard of the tattooed man?’ Sybert inquired gravely.

‘The tattooed man! What are you talking about?’

‘It has a somewhat theatrical ring,’ Mr. Copley admitted.

‘It is nothing to make light of,’ said his wife. ‘It’s a wonder to me that we escaped with our lives. Three years ago, while we were in Naples,’ she added to her niece, ‘your uncle, with his usual recklessness, got mixed up with one of the secret societies. Our villa was out toward Posilipo, and one afternoon I was driving home at about dusk—I had been shopping in the city—and just as we reached a lonely place in the road, between two high walls–’

Mr. Copley broke in: ‘A masked man armed to the teeth sprang up in the path, with a horrible oath.’

‘Not really!’ Marcia cried, leaning forward delightedly. ‘Aunt Katherine, did a masked man–’

‘He wasn’t masked, but I wish he had been; he would have looked less ferocious. He came straight to the side of the carriage, and taking off his hat with a very polite bow, he said that unless we left Naples in three days your uncle’s life would no longer be safe. His shirt was open at the throat, and there was a crucifix tattooed upside down on his breast. You can imagine what a desperate character he must have been—here in Italy of all places, where the people are so religious.’

The two men laughed at the climax.

‘What did you do?’ Marcia asked.

‘I was too shocked to speak, and Gerald, poor child, screamed all the way home.’

‘And did you leave the city?’

‘As it happened, we were leaving anyway,’ her uncle put in; ‘but we postponed our departure long enough for me to hunt the fellow down and put him in jail.’

‘You may be thankful that they had the decency to warn you,’ Sybert remarked.

‘It’s like a dime novel!’ Marcia sighed. ‘To be mixed up with murders and warnings and tattooed men and secret societies–Why didn’t you send for me, Uncle Howard?’

‘Well, you see, I didn’t know that you had grown up into such a charming person—though I am not sure that it would have made any difference. I had all that I could do to take care of one woman.’

‘That’s the way,’ she complained. ‘Just because one’s a girl one is always shut up in the house while there’s anything exciting going on.’

‘If you are so fond of bloodshed,’ Sybert suggested, ‘you may possibly have a chance of seeing some this spring.’

‘This spring? Is the Camorra making trouble again?’

‘Oh, no; not the Camorra. But unless all signs fail, there is a prospect of some fairly exciting riots.’

‘Really? Here in Rome?’

‘Well, no; probably not in Rome—there are too many soldiers. More likely in the Neapolitan provinces. I am sorry,’ he added, ‘since you seem to find them so entertaining, that we can’t promise you a riot on your own door-step; but I dare say, when it comes to the point, you’ll find Naples near enough.’

‘I give you fair warning, Uncle Howard,’ she said, ‘if there are any riots in Naples, I’m going down to see them. What is the trouble? What are they rioting about?’

‘If there are any riots,’ said her uncle, ‘you, my dear young lady, will amuse yourself at Villa Vivalanti until they are over,’ and he abruptly changed the subject.

The talk drifted back to the villa again. Mrs. Copley afforded their guest a more detailed description.

‘Nineteen bedrooms aside from the servants’ quarters, and room in the stable for thirty horses!’ she finished.

‘The princes of Vivalanti must have kept up an establishment in their pre-Riviera days.’

‘Mustn’t they?’ agreed Marcia cordially. The new villa was proving an unexpectedly soothing topic. ‘We’ll keep up an establishment too,’ she added. ‘We’re going to give a house-party when the Roystons come down from Paris, and—I know what we’ll do! We’ll give a ball for my birthday—won’t we, Uncle Howard? And have everybody out from Rome, and the ilex grove all lighted with coloured lamps!’

‘Not if I have anything to say about it,’ said Mr. Copley.

‘But you won’t have,’ said Marcia.

‘The only reason that I consented to take this villa was that I thought it was far enough away to escape parties for a time. You said–’

‘I said if you got nearer Rome we’d give a party every day, while as it is I’m only planning one party for all the three months.’

‘Sybert and I won’t come to it,’ he grumbled.

‘Perhaps you and Mr. Sybert won’t be invited.’

‘I don’t know where you’d find two such charming men,’ said Mrs. Copley.

‘Rome’s full of them,’ returned Marcia imperturbably.

‘Who are the Roystons, Miss Marcia?’ Sybert inquired.

‘They are the friends I came over with last fall. You know Mr. Dessart?’

‘The artist? Yes, I know him.’

‘Well, Mrs. Royston is his aunt, and she has two daughters who–’

‘Are his cousins,’ suggested Mr. Copley.

‘Yes; to be sure, and very charming girls. They spend a great deal of time over here—at least Mrs. Royston and Eleanor do. Margaret has been in college.’

‘And Mr. Royston,’ asked Copley, ‘stays in America and attends to his business?’

‘Yes; Mrs. Royston and Eleanor go over quite often to keep him from getting lonely.’

‘Very generous of them,’ Sybert laughed.

‘They’ve spent winters in Cairo and Vienna and Paris and a lot of different places,’ pursued Marcia. ‘Eleanor,’ she added ruminatingly, ‘has been out nine seasons, and she has had a good deal of—experience.’

‘Dear, dear!’ said her uncle; ‘and you are proposing to expose all Rome–’

‘She’s very attractive,’ said Marcia, and then she glanced at Sybert and laughed. ‘If she should happen to take a fancy to you, Mr. Sybert–’

The young man rose to his feet and looked about for his hat. ‘Goodness!’ he murmured, ‘what would she do?’

‘There’s no telling.’ Marcia regarded him with a speculative light in her eyes.

‘A young woman who has been practising for nine seasons certainly ought to have her hand in,’ Copley agreed. ‘Perhaps, after all, Sybert, it is best we should not meet her.’

Sybert found his hat and paused for a moment.

‘You can’t frighten me that way, Miss Marcia,’ he said, with a shake of his head. ‘I have been out thirteen seasons myself.’

CHAPTER III

‘May I come in for tea, Cousin Marcia?’ Gerald inquired, with a note of anxiety in his voice, as they climbed the stone staircase of the Palazzo Rosicorelli. They had been spending the afternoon in the Borghese gardens, and the boy’s very damp sailor-suit bore witness to the fact that he had been indulging in the forbidden pleasure of catching goldfish in the fountain.

‘Indeed you may not,’ she returned emphatically. ‘You may go with Marietta and have some dry clothes put on before your mother sees you.’

Gerald, realizing the wisdom of this course, allowed himself to be quietly spirited off the back way, in spite of the fact that he heard the alluring sound of Sybert’s voice in the direction of the salon. Marcia went on in without waiting to take off her hat, and she met the Melvilles in the ante-room, on the point of leaving.

‘Good afternoon. Why do you go so early?’ she asked.

‘Oh, we are coming back later; we are just going home to dress. Your uncle is giving a dinner to-night—a very formal affair.’

‘Is that so?’ she laughed. ‘I have not been invited.’

‘You will be; don’t feel hurt. It’s a general invitation issued to all comers.’

Marcia found no one within but her aunt and uncle and Mr. Sybert.

‘What is this I hear about your giving a dinner to-night, Aunt Katherine?’ she asked as she settled herself in a wicker chair and stretched out her hand for a cup of tea.

‘You must ask your uncle. I have nothing to do with it,’ Mrs. Copley disclaimed. ‘He invited the guests, and he must provide the menu.’

‘What is it, Uncle Howard?’

‘Merely a little farewell dinner. I thought we ought to put on a bright face our last night, you know.’

‘One would think you were going to be led to execution at dawn.’

‘We will hope it’s nothing worse than exile,’ said Sybert.

‘Who are your guests, and when were they invited?’

‘My guests are the people who dropped in late to tea; I did not think of it early enough to make the invitation very general. The list, I believe, includes the Melvilles, Signora Androit and the Contessa Torrenieri, Sidney Carthrope the sculptor, and a certain young Frenchman, a most alluring youth, who called with him, but whose name for the moment escapes me.’

‘Adolphe Benoit,’ said Sybert.

‘The Prix de Rome?’ asked Marcia. ‘Oh, I know him! I met him a few weeks ago at a tea; he’s very entertaining. I suppose,’ she added, considering the list, ‘that he will fall to my share?’

‘Unless you prefer Mr. Sybert.’

‘An embarrassing predicament, Miss Marcia,’ Sybert laughed. ‘If it will facilitate matters we can draw lots.’

‘Not at all,’ said Marcia graciously, ‘I know the Contessa would rather have you; and as she is the guest I will let her choose. I hope your dinner will be a success,’ she added to her uncle, ‘but I can’t help feeling that you show a touching faith in the cook.’

‘Thank you, my dear; I am of an optimistic turn of mind, and François has never failed me yet.—How did the Borghese gallery go?’

‘Very well. I met Mr. Dessart there—and I met the King outside.’

‘Ah, I hope His Majesty was enjoying good health?’

‘He seemed to be. I didn’t stop to speak to him, but there was a boy in a group of seminarists near us who called out, “Viva il papa,” just as he passed.’

‘And what happened?’ Sybert inquired. ‘Did the King’s guard behead him on the spot, or did they only send him to the galleys for life?’

‘The King’s guard fortunately had eyes only for the King, and the old priest gathered his flock together and scuttled off down one of the side paths, as frightened as a hen who sees a hawk.’

‘And with good reason—but wait till the lads grow up, and they’ll do something besides shout and run.’

There was an undertone in Sybert’s voice different from his usual listless drawl. Marcia glanced up at him quickly and Dessart’s insinuations flashed through her mind.

‘Do you mean you would rather have Leo XIII king instead of Humbert?’ she asked.

‘Heavens, no! No one wants the temporal power back—not even the Catholics themselves.’

‘I should think that when the Italians have gone through so much to get their king, they might be satisfied with him. They ought to have more patience, and not expect the country to be rich in a minute. Everything can’t be done all at once; and as for blaming the government because the African war didn’t turn out well—why, no one could foresee the result. It was a mistake instead of a crime.’

Sybert was watching her lazily, with an amused smile about his lips. ‘Will you pardon me, Miss Marcia, if I ask if those are your own conclusions, or the opinions of our young friend the American artist?’

‘He does not plot against the King, at any rate!’ she retorted.

‘Please, Miss Marcia,’ he begged, ‘don’t think so badly of me as that. Really, I’m not an anarchist. I don’t want to blow His Majesty up.’

‘Go home and dress, Sybert,’ Copley murmured, taking him by the arm. ‘I have to go and interview the cook, and I don’t dare leave you and my niece together. There’s no telling what would happen.’

‘She’s a suspicious young woman,’ Sybert complained. ‘Can’t you teach her to take your friends on trust?’

‘For the matter of that, she doesn’t even take her uncle on trust.’

‘And no wonder!’ said Marcia. ‘I forgot to tell you my other adventure, just as the carriage turned into the Corso we got jammed in close to the curb and had to stop. I looked up and saw a man standing on the side-walk, glaring at me over the top of a newspaper—simply glaring—and suddenly he jumped to the side of the carriage and thrust the paper in my hands. He said something in Italian, but too fast for me to catch, and before I could move, Marietta had snatched it up and dashed it back in his face. The paper was named the Cry of the People; I just caught one word in it, and that was—’ she paused dramatically—‘Copley! Now, Uncle Howard,’ she finished, ‘do you think you ought to be trusted? When it gets to the point that the people in the street–’

She stopped suddenly. She had caught a quick glance between her uncle and Sybert. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Do you know what it means?’

‘It means damned impudence!’ said her uncle. ‘I’ll have that editor arrested if he doesn’t keep still,’ and the two men stood eyeing each other a minute in silence. Then Copley gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe the Grido del Popolo can destroy my character. Nobody reads it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You’d better go and dress, Marcia. My party begins promptly at eight.’

‘You needn’t use any such clumsy method as that of getting rid of me,’ she laughed. ‘I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted. All I have to say,’ she called back from the doorway, ‘is that you’d better stop badgering those poor old beggars, or you’ll be getting a warning to leave Rome as well as Naples.’

Marcia rang for Granton.

‘Have you time to fix my hair now?’ she inquired as the maid appeared, ‘or does Mrs. Copley need you?’

‘Mrs. Copley hasn’t begun to dress yet; she is watching Master Gerald eat his supper.’

‘Oh, very well, then, there is time enough; I’ll get through before she is ready for you. Do my hair sort of Frenchy,’ she commanded as she sat down before the mirror. ‘What dress do you think I’d better wear?’ she continued presently. ‘That white one I wore last week, or the new green one that came from Paris yesterday?’

‘I should think the white one, Miss Marcia, and save the new one for some party.’

‘It would be more sensible,’ Marcia agreed; ‘but,’ she added with a laugh, ‘I think I’ll wear the new one.’

Granton got it out with an unsmiling face which was meant to convey the fact that she could not countenance this American prodigality. She had lived ten years with an elderly English duchess, and had thought that she knew the ways of the aristocracy.

The gown was a filmy green mousseline touched with rose velvet and yellow lace. Marcia put it on and surveyed herself critically. ‘What do you think, Granton?’ she asked.

‘It’s very becoming, Miss Marcia,’ Granton returned primly.

‘Yes,’ Marcia sighed—‘and very tight!’ She caught up her fan and turned toward the door. ‘Don’t be hurt because I didn’t take your advice,’ she called back over her shoulder. ‘I never take anybody’s, Granton.’

She found her uncle alone in the salon, pacing the floor in a restless fashion, with two frowning lines between his brows. He paused in his walk as she appeared, and his frown gave place, readily enough, to a smile.

‘You look very well to-night,’ he remarked approvingly. ‘You—er—have a new gown, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, yes, Uncle Howard,’ she laughed. ‘It’s all the gown. Send your compliments to my dressmaker, 45 Avenue de l’Opéra. I thought I would wear it in honour of Mr. Sybert; it’s so seldom we have him with us.’

Mr. Copley received this statement with something like a grunt.

‘There! Uncle Howard, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Mr. Sybert is the nicest man that ever lived. And what I particularly like about him, is the fact that he is so genial and expansive and thoughtful for others—always trying to put people at their ease.’

Mr. Copley refused to smile. ‘I am sorry, Marcia, that you don’t like Sybert,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s because you don’t understand him.’

‘I dare say; and I suppose he doesn’t like me, for the same reason.’

‘He is a splendid fellow; I’ve never known a better one—and a man can judge.’

Marcia laughed. ‘Uncle Howard, do you know what you remind me of? An Italian father who is arranging a marriage for his daughter, and having chosen the man, is recommending him for her approval.’

‘Oh, no; I don’t go to the length of asking you to fall in love with him—though you might do worse—but I should be pleased if you would treat him—er–’

‘Respectfully, as I would my father.’

‘More respectfully than you do your uncle, at any rate. He may not be exactly what you’d call a lady’s man–’

‘A lady’s man! Uncle Howard, you make me furious when you talk like that; as if I only liked men with dimples in their chins, who dance well and get ices for you! I’m sorry if I don’t treat Mr. Sybert seriously enough; but really I don’t think he treats me seriously, either. You think I don’t know anything, just because I can’t tell the difference between the Left and the Right. I’ve only just come to Rome, and I don’t see how you can expect me to know about Italian politics. You both of you laugh whenever I ask the simplest question.’

‘But you ask such exceedingly simple questions, dear.’

‘How can I help it when you give me such absurd answers?’

‘I’m sorry. We’ll try to do better in the future. I suppose we’ve both of us been a little worried this spring, and you probe us on a tender point.’

‘But who ever heard of a man’s being really worried over politics—that is, unless he’s running for something? They should be regarded as an amusement to while away your leisure. You and Mr. Sybert are so funny, Uncle Howard; you take your amusements so seriously.’

‘“Politics” is a broad word, Marcia,’ he returned, with a slight frown; ‘and when it stands for oppression and injustice and starving peasants it has to be taken seriously.’

‘Is it really so bad, Uncle Howard?’

‘Good heavens, Marcia! It’s awful!’

She was startled at his tone, and glanced up at him quickly. He was staring at the light, with a hard look in his eyes and his mouth drawn into a straight line.

‘I’m sorry, Uncle Howard; I didn’t know. What can I do?’

‘What can any of us do?’ he asked bitterly. ‘We can give one day, and it’s eaten up before night. And we can keep on giving, but what does it amount to? The whole thing is rotten from the bottom.’

‘Can’t the people get work?’