‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I suppose this is your book? And I am afraid you have caught me red-handed. You must excuse me for looking at it, but usually at this season only German Alpine climbers stop at the Hotel du Lac, and I was surprised, you know, to find that German Alpine climbers did anything so frivolous as reading Gyp.’
The man bowed with a gesture which made her free of the book, but he continued his silence. Constance glanced at him again, and this time she allowed a flash of recognition to appear in her face.
‘Oh!’ she re-exclaimed with a note of interested politeness, ‘you are the young man who stumbled into Villa Rosa last Monday looking for the garden of the prince?’
He bowed a second time, an answering flash appearing in his face.
‘And you are the young woman who was sitting on the wall beside a row of—of–’
‘Stockings?’ She nodded. ‘I trust you found the prince’s garden without difficulty?’
‘Yes, thank you. Your directions were very explicit.’
A slight pause followed, the young man waiting deferentially for her to take the lead.
‘You find Valedolmo interesting?’ she inquired.
‘Interesting!’ His tone was enthusiastic. ‘Aside from the prince’s garden, which contains a cedar of Lebanon and an india-rubber plant from South America, there is the Luini in the chapel of San Bartolomeo, and the statue of Garibaldi in the piazza. And then–’ he waved his hand toward the lake, ‘there is always the view.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘one can always look at the view.’
Her eyes wandered to the lake, and across the lake to Monte Maggiore with clouds drifting about its peak. And while she obligingly studied the mountain, he studied the effect of the pink gown and the rose-bud hat. She turned back suddenly and caught him; it was a disconcerting habit of Constance’s. He politely looked away, and she—with frank interest—studied him. He was bareheaded and dressed in white flannels; they were very becoming, she noted critically, and yet—they needed just a touch of colour; a red sash, for example, and earrings.
‘The guests of the Hotel du Lac,’ she remarked, ‘have a beautiful garden of their own. Just the mere pleasure of strolling about in it ought to keep them contented with Valedolmo.’
‘Not necessarily,’ he objected. ‘Think of the Garden of Eden—the most beautiful garden there has ever been, if report speaks true—and yet the mere pleasure of strolling about didn’t keep Adam contented. One gets lonely, you know.’
‘Are you the only guest?’
‘Oh, no, there are four of us, but we’re not very companionable; there’s such a discrepancy in languages.’
‘And you don’t speak Italian?’
He shook his head.
‘Only English and’—he glanced at the book in her hand—‘French indifferently well.’
‘I saw some one the other day who spoke Magyar—that is a beautiful language.’
‘Yes?’ he returned with polite indifference. ‘I don’t remember ever to have heard it.’
She laughed and glanced about. Her eyes lighted on the arbour hung with grape-vines and wistaria, where, far at the other end, Gustavo’s figure was visible lounging in the yellow stucco doorway. The sight appeared to recall an errand to her mind. She glanced down at a pink wicker-basket which hung on her arm, and gathered up her skirts with a movement of departure.
The young man hastily picked up the conversation.
‘It is a jolly old garden,’ he affirmed. ‘And there’s something pathetic about its appearing on souvenir post cards as a mere adjunct to a blue and yellow hotel.’
She nodded sympathetically.
‘Built for romance and abandoned to tourists—German tourists at that!’
‘Oh, not entirely—we’ve a Russian countess just now.’
‘A Russian countess?’ Constance turned toward him with an air of reawakened interest. ‘Is she as young and beautiful and fascinating and wicked as they always are in novels?’
‘Oh, dear no! Seventy, if she’s a day. A nice grandmotherly old soul who smokes cigarettes.’
‘Ah!’ Constance smiled; there was even a trace of relief in her manner as she nodded to the young man and turned away. His face reflected his disappointment; he plainly wished to detain her, but could think of no expedient. The spotted calf came to his rescue. The calf had been watching them from the first, very much interested in the visitor; and now, as she approached his tree, he stretched out his neck as far as the tether permitted and sniffed insistently. She paused and patted him on the head. The calf acknowledged the caress with a grateful moo; there was a plaintive light in his liquid eyes.
‘Poor thing—he’s lonely!’ She turned to the young man and spoke with an accent of reproach. ‘The four guests of the Hotel du Lac don’t show him enough attention.’
The young man shrugged.
‘We’re tired of calves. It’s only a matter of a day or so before he’ll be breaded and fried and served Milanese fashion with a sauce of tomato and garlic.’
Constance shook her head sympathetically; though whether her sympathy was for the calf or the partakers of table d’hôte was not quite clear.
‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve been a guest at the Hotel du Lac myself—it’s a tragedy to be born a calf in Italy!’
She nodded and turned; it was evident this time that she was really going. He took a hasty step forward.
‘Oh, I say, please don’t go! Stay and talk to me—just a little while. That calf isn’t half so lonely as I am.’
‘I should like to, but really I mustn’t. Elizabetta is waiting for me to bring her some eggs. We are planning a trip up the Maggiore to-morrow, and we have to have a cake to take with us. Elizabetta made one this morning, but she forgot to put in the baking powder. Italian cooks are not used to making cakes; they are much better at’—her eyes fell on the calf—‘veal and such things.’
He folded his arms with an air of desperation.
‘I’m an American—one of your own countrymen; if you had a grain of charity in your nature you would let the cake go.’
She shook her head relentlessly.
‘Five days at Valedolmo! You would not believe the straits I’ve been driven to in search of amusement.’
‘Yes?’ There was a touch of curiosity in her tone. ‘What for example?’
‘I am teaching Gustavo how to play tennis.’
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘How does he do?’
‘Broken three windows and a flower-pot and lost four balls.’
She laughed and turned away; and then as an idea occurred to her, she turned back and fixed her eyes sympathetically on his face.
‘I suppose Valedolmo is stupid for a man; but why don’t you try mountain-climbing? Everybody finds that diverting. There’s a guide here who speaks English—really comprehensible English. He’s engaged for to-morrow, but after that I dare say he’ll be free. Gustavo can tell you about him.’
She nodded and smiled and turned down the arbour.
The young man stood where she left him, with folded arms, watching her pink gown as it receded down the long sun-flecked alley hung with purple and green. He waited until it had been swallowed up in the yellow doorway; then he fetched a deep breath and strolled to the water-wall. After a few moments’ prophetic contemplation of the mountain across the lake, he threw back his head with a quick amused laugh, and got out a cigarette and lighted it.
CHAPTER IX
As Constance emerged at the other end of the arbour, Gustavo, who had been nodding on the bench beside the door, sprang to his feet, consternation in his attitude.
‘Signorina!’ he stammered. ‘You come from ze garden?’
She nodded in her usual off-hand manner and handed him the basket.
‘Eggs, Gustavo—two dozen if you can spare them. I am sorry always to be wanting so many, but’—she sighed—‘eggs are so breakable!’