Shadows of Flames Part 51

She felt awkward--shy.

"Won't you ... won't you stop to dinner?" she asked lamely, but her voice sounded lukewarm. She was a little frightened again, because she wanted him to stay so much. The Anglo-Saxon in her put this chill note in her voice just because she so much wanted it.

"Thanks--no," he said. "It is very kind of you, but Baldi is waiting dinner for me."

She said again, murmuring the words, slurring them together:

"I'm sorry."

"But I will stay a few moments if you will let me," said Amaldi, hesitating a little.

"Yes--do," she answered, somewhat recovering herself. "I will just send Luigi down for my parcels, and come back--it is cooler here." She did not want to go into the lighted house with him just then. She still felt that queer shyness.

"Let me call him," said Amaldi.

When he came back, she was sitting on one of the little stone seats near the railing of the terrace. He longed to see her face more clearly, yet he, too, did not want to go into the light just then.

"It was very hot in Rome," he said conventionally. "I'm glad to be back again."

"Yes," said Sophy. "It is nice to have you back."

She felt the flatness of this "nice."

"We ... missed you," she added quickly.

"Thank you," said Amaldi. His voice shook a little.

"I ... I thought perhaps you mightn't come till I had gone."

He was silent a second, then he said in a queer voice:

"Could you really have thought that?"

"Well ... I ... I was afraid you might be kept," she stumbled. There had been a hurt in his voice.

"Nothing could have kept me from saying good-by to you," he said quietly.

Her head turned towards him, quick and startled.

"Oh! Are you going away again?" she said--then caught her lip between her teeth in the soft gloom.

"No," said Amaldi very low.

Sophy felt the strange tension of this halting talk. She rose suddenly.

"Perhaps we had better go in after all," she said, and her tone was full of the embarra.s.sment against which she struggled. "We seem like two disembodied spirits talking out of the dusk like this."

"I wish we were," came the answer, tense and abrupt as though in spite of his will.

"Oh, no," she faltered, attempting a little laugh which died out helplessly. "We are both too fond of life for that, Marchese."

"I could be fond of it."

"No, no. You are fond of it now."

"Yes ... now."

"Come--Luigi has taken up my parcels. Such lovely things. I want to show them to you."

"_Prego_ ... but I must be going--Baldi will begin to fret."

He had recovered a more ordinary tone. He had himself gripped hard. What was there in her shy voice which had almost made him lose command of himself for a moment? There had been something. No; he was a fond fool.

He held out his hand for good-night. She put hers in it. The man's blood and spirit was one cry within him. It called to her so wildly that he thought she must hear that voice of silence. Her hand seemed to quiver as it lay in his, then she withdrew it quickly.

"Good-night," she said. He murmured "good-night," turned and was gone.

Sophy stood gazing out to where the _Fretta_ lay a whitish blur along the _banchetta_. Then she saw the little jewel of its lamp shine suddenly--Peder's face glowed yellow-red in the flare of the match, then went out as it were. Now Amaldi had got in. She heard the engine begin to hum. In a second the dusk had swallowed them.

She stood gripping the iron rail, till the chill struck along her arms.

She was very honest with herself. "I care too much ... not _that_ way ... but oh! ... I care too much!" she was saying. "And he cares ... he cares ... I must go away ... I must go even sooner than I thought...."

Then she sank down on the little stone seat, and pressed her forehead to the rail.

"Life is hard ... it is hard ... hard," she thought, a great wave of bitterness going over her.

But the next day she was so worried about Bobby, who had caught cold in some way, that she had no time to give, even in thought, to other anxieties. The child looked pale, the glands in his little neck were swollen, he seemed to have pain, clasping his fat little stomach with pathetic hands and saying: "Naughty tummy. Bobby tummy bad--naughty." He was a manly little chap and wouldn't howl outright, but he curled into a ball on his cot, murmuring, "Oo ... oo ... o--o" plaintively.

Sophy would not have felt so anxious had Miller been with her, but that personage had found Italy with its "gibberish" and lack of most domestic conveniences insupportable after the first two weeks, and so she had respectfully given warning. Bobby, to Sophy's great relief, took her departure calmly. Miller had been a dutiful but not endearing nurse.

Then the Marchesa had come to the fore with her usual kindliness, and provided Bobby with the nurse who was to prove the love of his young life. This woman was Rosa Ramoni, a Lombard peasant. Her dark, square-lidded eyes reminded Sophy of the Duse's, but their expression was very different--almost bovinely guileless, yet sparkling with merriment, that gushed over at the least trifle, into her free, delicious Contadina's laugh. Rosa had one of the wisest hearts in the world, but her knowledge of nursery physic was primitive to say the least. Even after seeing Dottore Camenis from Stresa, and hearing to her great relief that Bobby's "naughty tummy" was only the result of indigestion brought on by cold, Sophy was afraid to leave him quite to Rosa's care for a day or two, so she had to refuse the invitation which came from the Marchesa, the morning after Amaldi's return, and which said that now they must have the _gita_ which Marco's visit to Rome had broken up.

When Sophy wrote to explain, the Marchesa answered by saying, "Then the first day your dear _tousin_ is well enough." Sophy could not refuse without seeming ungracious. "This time, then," she thought, "but I must make definite plans to-morrow for leaving. Bobby's cold gives me just the right excuse...." But her heart felt very heavy and very lonely at this decision of her reason.

The afternoon was all blue and gold--one of those perfect days in late August, when the summer warmth sparkles with the zest of autumn. An old school-friend of the Marchesa was arriving by the evening train from Milan. So they were to use the _Fretta_, starting at five o'clock from Villa Bianca and stopping at Isola Bella for tea. Afterwards Sophy would be left at home, and the _Fretta_ would go on to Laveno to meet the Marchesa's friend.

It seemed strange, startling somehow, to see Amaldi's face in this blaze of sunshine, after last seeing it in the dim starlight. He was as quietly composed as usual, however. The only difference that she noticed about him was that he managed always when looking at her not to look directly into her eyes. This relieved and saddened her at the same time.

But when they got to Isola Bella, and he grasped her hand, a.s.sisting her to step in and out of the row-boats that lay between the _Fretta_ and the sh.o.r.e, she caught her foot on a seat, nearly falling into the water: then his eyes went into hers. He had to catch her to him, rather roughly in the exigency of the moment, close against his side. As he glanced down at her, she glanced up involuntarily:--his eyes went deep into hers--a keen, quick ray, making her feel as if her spirit had been stabbed. It winced from that suddenly unsheathed stabbing look, as her flesh would have winced from a blade. He loosed her instantly, but she felt the contact of that look through and through her.

During tea she talked rather fast and rather more than usual. She made the Marchesa laugh her gay arpeggio of "Ha-ha's"; Amaldi smiled politely. He was smoking after his tea. He seemed to enjoy his cigarette especially--inhaling deeply and letting the smoke escape through his nostrils very slowly, his eyes watching it.

"I am still worried about Bobby, Marchesa," said Sophy suddenly. "He has a little cough. I think I shall take him south. I thought of Sorrento."

"But, my dear, September is a warm, lovely month with us--like summer.

Only the nights and mornings are crisp. Aren't you over-anxious?"

The Marchesa had not been a fussy mother herself. She thought Sophy inclined to coddle Bobby.

"Yes--I know," Sophy replied hurriedly. "But the change will be best for him I'm sure. Besides--my husband will be well enough to travel shortly--I heard from the nurse to-day. He loves the sea--sailing and fishing. I'm afraid he'd feel the lake too shut in----"

"Oh, in that case...." said the Marchesa. She was pleased to hear Sophy mention her husband in this way. It had struck her how rarely she mentioned him. Never before had she done so when the three were together, that the Marchesa could remember. She had wondered sometimes what could ail Mr. Chesney, that his wife seemed so reticent about his illness. Now she felt that things were settling down into just the right form. It was very good that Marco should hear Sophy planning thus for the pleasure of her husband. She glanced at him _a la derobee_. He was smoking as imperturbably as ever. He seemed to be interested in the movements of some fishermen who were putting out for the evening cast.