§2
"An Italian peasant's idea of love is altogether different to that of an English yokel. The latter will begin by keeping company with his sweetheart: he will walk out with her in the twilight, and sit beside her on the stile, chewing the end of a straw and timidly holding her hand. Kisses are exchanged, and sighs, and usually no end of jokes and chaff. On the whole the English yokel is a cheerful lover. Not so the Italian. With him love is the serious drama of life; he is always prepared for it to turn to tragedy. His love is overwhelming, tempestuous. With one arm he fondles his sweetheart, but the other hand is behind his back, grasping a knife.
"So it was with Antonio Vissio. Winnie Gooden was the daughter of one of the gardeners at Markthwaite Hall, Lord Crookhaven's residence. She was remarkably pretty, and I suppose that she was attracted by the silent, rather sullen Italian, who, by the way, was extraordinarily good-looking. Dark eyes, a soft creamy skin, quantities of wavy hair; every one admitted that the two of them made a splendid pair when they walked out together on Sunday afternoons. Thanks to the kindness of Colonel Arnott, Vissio had succeeded in selling the bit of land on which his farm had stood, so he had a good bit of money, too, and though James Gooden, the father, was said to be averse to the idea of his daughter marrying a foreigner, it was thought that Winnie would talk her father over easily enough, if she really meant to have Antonio; but people didn't think that she was seriously in love with him.
"During the spring of 1922 Mr. Gerald Moville came home from Argentina, where he was said to be engaged in cattle-rearing. He was the youngest son of Sir Timothy Moville, whose property adjoined that of Lord Crookhaven. His arrival caused quite a flutter in feminine hearts for miles around, for smart young men are scarce in those parts, and Gerald Moville was both good-looking and smart, a splendid dancer, a fine tennis and bridge player, and in fact, was possessed of the very qualities which young ladies of all classes admire, and which were so sadly lacking in the other young men of the neighbourhood. The fact that he had always been very wild, and that it was only through joining the Air Force at the beginning of the war that he escaped prosecution for some shady transaction in connection with a bridge club in London, did not seriously stand against him, at any rate with the ladies; the men, perhaps, cold-shouldered him at first, and he was not made an honorary member of the County Club at Richmond, but he was welcome at all the tea and garden parties, the dances, and the tennis matches throughout the North Riding, and in social matters it is, after all, the ladies who rule the roost.
"The Movilles, moreover, were big people in the neighbourhood, whom nobody would have cared to offend. The eldest son was colonel commanding a smart regiment—I forget which; one daughter had married an eminent K.C., and the other was the wife of a bishop; so for the sake of the family, if for no other reason, Gerald Moville was accepted socially and his peccadilloes, of which it seems there were more than the one in connection with the bridge club, were conveniently forgotten. Besides which it was declared that he was now a reformed character. He had joined the Air Force quite early in the war, been a prisoner of the Germans until 1919, when he went out to Argentina, where he had made good, and where, it was said, he was making a huge fortune. This rumour also helped, no doubt, to make Gerald Moville popular, even though he himself had laughingly sworn on more than one occasion that he was not a marrying man: he was in love with too many girls ever to settle down with one. He certainly was a terrible flirt, and gave all the pretty girls of the neighbourhood a very good time; he had hired a smart little two-seater at Richmond, and motor-excursions, lunches at the Wheatsheaf at Reeth, jade earrings or wrist watches—the girls who were ready to flirt with him and to amuse him could get anything they wanted out of him.
"But it was soon pretty evident that though Gerald Moville flirted with many, it was Winnie Gooden whom he admired the most. From the first he ran after that girl in a way that scandalised the village gossips. She, of course, was flattered by his attentions, but did not show the slightest inclination to throw Antonio over. She was sensible enough to know that Gerald Moville would never marry her, and she made it very clear that though he amused her, her heart would remain true to her Italian lover. But here was the trouble. Antonio was not the man to run in double harness. His fiery Southern blood rose in revolt against any thought of rivalry. He had won Winnie's love and meant to hold it against all comers, and more than once in public and in private he threatened to do for any man who came between him and Winnie.
"You would have thought that those who were in the know would have foreseen the tragedy from the moment that Winnie Gooden started to flirt with Gerald Moville; nevertheless, when it did occur there was universal surprise quite as much as horror, and there seemed to be no one clever enough to understand the psychological problem that was the true key of that so-called mystery."