He touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on the step below them. It was the young peasant again who had guided them down the mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but Maria. She leaned toward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. Their interest in the play was purely a pretense and both of them knew it.
Tony laughed softly and echoed her words.
“Yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine.”
He slipped his arm around her.
Constance drew back quickly.
“I think,” she remarked, “that the diligence has come.”
“Oh, hang the diligence!” Tony growled. “Why couldn’t it have been five minutes late?”
They returned to the inn to find Mr. Wilder already on the front seat, and obligingly holding the reins, while the driver occupied himself with a glass of the famous wine. The diligence was a roomy affair of four seats and three horses. Behind the driver were three Italians gesticulating violently over local politics; a new sindaco was imminent. Behind these were three black-hooded nuns covertly interested in the woman in the pink evening gown. And behind the three, occupying the exact center of the rear seat, was a fourth nun with the portly bearing of a Mother Superior. She was very comfortable as she was, and did not propose to move. Constance climbed up on one side of her and Tony on the other.
“We are well chaperoned,” he grumbled, as they jolted out of the piazza. “I always did think that the Church interfered too much with the rights of individuals.”
Constance, in a spirit of friendly expansiveness, proceeded to pick up an acquaintance with the nuns, and the four black heads were presently bobbing in unison, while Tony, in gloomy isolation at his end of the seat, folded his arms and stared at the road. The driver had passed through many villages that day and had drunk many glasses of famous wine; he cracked his whip and sang as he drove. They rattled in and out of stone-paved villages, along open stretches of moonlit road, past villas and olive groves. Children screamed after them, dogs barked, Constance and her four nuns were very vivacious, and Tony’s gloom deepened with every mile.
They had covered three quarters of the distance when the diligence was brought to a halt before a high stone wall and a solid barred gate. The nuns came back to the present with an excited cackling. Who would believe they had reached the convent so soon! They made their adieus and ponderously descended, their departure accelerated by Tony who had become of a sudden alertly helpful. As they started again he slid along into the Mother Superior’s empty seat.
“What were we saying when the diligence interrupted?” he inquired.
“I don’t remember, Tony, but I don’t want to talk any more; I’m tired.”
“You tired, signorina? Lay your head on my shoulder and go to sleep.”
“Tony, please behave yourself. I’m simply too tired to make you do it.”
He reached over and took her hand. She did not try to withdraw it for two—three minutes; then she shot him a sidewise glance.
“Tony,” she said, “don’t you think you are forgetting your place?”
“No, signorina, I am just learning it.”
“Let go my hand.”
He gazed pensively at the moon and hummed Santa Lucia under his breath.
“Tony! I shall be angry with you.”
“I shall be ver’ sorry for zat, signorina. I do not wish to make you angry, but I sink—perhaps you get over it.”
“You are behaving abominably today, Tony. I shall never stay alone with you again.”
“Signorina, look at zat moon up dere. Is it not ver’ bright? When I look at zat moon I have always beautiful toughts about how much I love Costantina.”
An interval followed during which neither spoke. The driver’s song was growing louder and the horses were galloping. The diligence suddenly rounded a curved cliff on two wheels. Constance lurched against him; he caught her and held her. Her lips were very near his; he kissed her softly.
She moved to the far end of the seat and faced him with flushed cheeks.
“I thought you were a gentleman!”
“I used to be, signorina; now I am only poor donkey-man.”
“I shall never speak to you again. You can climb as many mountains as you wish with my father, but you can’t have anything more to do with me.”
“Scusi, signorina. I—I did not mean to. It was just an accident, signorina.”
Constance turned her back and stared at the road.
“It was not my fault. Truly it was not my fault. I did not wish to kiss you—no nevair. But I could not help it. You put your head too close.”
She raised her eyes and studied the mountain-top.
“Signorina, why you treat me so cruel?”
Her back was inflexible.
“I am desolate. If you forgive me zis once I will nevair again do a sing so wicked. Nevair, nevair, nevair.”
Constance continued her inspection of the mountain-top. Tony leaned forward until he could see her face.
“Signorina,” he whispered, “jus’ give me one li’l’ smile to show me you are not angry forever.”
The stage had stopped and Mr. Wilder was climbing down but Constance’s gaze was still fixed on the sky, and Tony’s eyes were on her.
“What’s the matter, Constance, have you gone to sleep? Aren’t you going to get out?”
She came back with a start.
“Are we here already?”
There was a suspicion of regret in her tone which did not escape Tony.
At the Villa Rosa gates he wished them a humbly deferential good-night but with a smile hovering about the corners of his mouth. Constance made no response. As he strode off, however, she turned her head and looked after him. He turned too and caught her. He waved his hand with a laugh, and took up his way, whistling Santa Lucia in double time.
CHAPTER XIII
Three days passed in which Mr. Wilder and Tony industriously climbed, and in which nothing of consequence passed between Constance and Tony. If she happened to be about when the expeditions either started or came to an end (and for one reason or another she usually was) she ignored him entirely; and he ignored her, except for an occasional mockingly deferential bow. He appeared to extract as much pleasure from the excursions as Mr. Wilder, and he asked for no extra compensation by the way.
It was Tuesday again, just a week and a day since the young American had dropped over the wall of Villa Rosa asking for the garden of the prince. Tony and Mr. Wilder were off on a trip; Miss Hazel and Constance on the point of sitting down to afternoon tea—there were no guests today—when the gardener from the Hotel du Lac appeared with a message from Nannie Hilliard. She and her aunt had arrived half an hour before, which was a good two days earlier than they were due. Constance read the note with a clouded brow and silently passed it to Miss Hazel. The news was not so entirely welcome as under other circumstances it would have been. Nannie Hilliard was both perspicacious and fascinating, and Constance foresaw that her presence would tangle further the already tangled plot of the little comedy which was unfolding itself at Villa Rosa. But Miss Hazel, divining nothing of comedies or plots, was thrown into a pleasant flutter by the news. Guests were a luxury which occurred but seldom in the quiet monotony of Valedolmo.
“We must call on them at once and bring them back to the house.”
“I suppose we must.” Constance agreed with an uncordial sigh.
Fifteen minutes later they were on their way to the Hotel du Lac, while Elizabetta, on her knees in the villa guest-room, was vigorously scrubbing the mosaic floor.
Gustavo hurried out to meet them. He was plainly in a flutter; something had occurred to upset the usual suavity of his manners.
“Si, signorina, in ze garden—ze two American ladies—having tea. And you are acquaint wif ze family; all ze time you are acquaint wif zem, and you never tell me!” There was mystification and reproach in his tone.