V
This was how it came to the Younger that more might lie in experiments than one foresaw. He did not like at all that insinuation that the marquis would catch Susannah by foul means if not by fair. But, however he might dislike the Elder’s tactics, the Younger felt his own share of the responsibility.
The two men met one morning at the gate of the villino—the Younger going in, the Elder coming out. They exchanged ceremonious salutations, as usual.
“I have just brought the knockers,” said the latter. “I am much obliged for that clever suggestion of yours. The head is a speaking likeness.”
The Younger smiled uncomfortably.
“Yes? And what does our young lady think of them?”
“She is very pretty. She says they are too charming to put out here on the door. She must keep them by her.”
The Younger stepped inside and slammed the gate in the other’s face. Could a spectator then have seen both sides of the wall he would have observed each gentleman, very red, contemplating for a moment the closed door. He would finally have beheld them turn and walk away—the Elder slowly, shrugging his shoulders; the Younger in haste, his head held high.
He found Susannah in the sala, laughing over the obnoxious knockers. The sight of it angered him the more.
“My dear young lady,” he cried out, “you have made a fool of yourself long enough. You must go home.”
Susannah stopped laughing, for very surprise. She examined the flushed Younger curiously, as if he had been a strange beast in a cage.
“Why,” she said, “what is the matter with you? Do you feel ill? Shall I ring for Gilda?”
The Younger flung his hat into a chair.
“I do feel ill! You and the marquis make me ill between you!”
“Oh, the marquis!” Susannah glanced at the knockers and smiled. “Yes, I remember. You introduced the marquis to me. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “That’s why I’m here now.”
She laughed.
“What funny creatures men are! They never think of things beforehand. And they said you were clever.”
“I never told you so,” he retorted rather dully. “You’d better wait till you get things from headquarters.”
“So had you,” she rapped out. “Who told you, I was making a fool of myself?”
“Nobody! Nobody needed to! What under the sun do you mean by filling your house with his truck?”
“What business is it of yours?” demanded Susannah hotly. “You don’t care anything about us!”
“What if I don’t? I care about seeing my country made a scandal.”
Susannah again looked at him curiously a moment.
“O! If you are so patriotic I wonder you don’t go home yourself. Wouldn’t that be the easiest way out of your—” she smiled—“your troubles?”
“No! That wouldn’t stop anything. I want things stopped. I want you to go.”
“Well, well!” she exclaimed. “You are in a hurry all of a sudden. It seems to me that you ask a good deal of people you have done so little for—though perhaps you have done a good deal. Is that all?”
“No!” he cried. “Since you ask, I want you to send him back all these things—every single one of them.”
She looked at him more curiously still.
“What! All these pretty things! Why, we’re only just beginning to get comfortable. And see! He just brought me something else.”
She held up the knockers, as if they had been two dolls. The Younger shrugged his shoulders and walked to the end of the room.
“What are you going to do?” he suddenly threw at her. “Are you going to marry him?”
She laughed softly.
“Him? O no! No! And I don’t even think he really wants me to. It’s a sort of game, you see,” she added, with a confiding seriousness.
“Dio mio! I do see. I have seen for a good while. How long are you going to keep it up?”
“I don’t think you really deserve to know,” she said, with her head on one side. “But since you ask, and since you began it, I will tell you.” She assumed an air of great mystery. “I’m going to keep it up till he brings me the gold salt cellars!”
He stared at her. But she faced him out. And when he walked away to a window she threw him a question in turn.
“Now that I’ve told you what you wanted to know, will you tell me something?”
“What is it?” He faced partly about.
“Just how did the game begin? What did you tell him, I mean? You see, his—his manners—were so different before you came and after.”
The Younger laughed curtly.
“I told him you were respectable.”
At this he looked out of the window again.
“Oh—respectable,” said Susannah behind him. “You told him I was respectable? That was very kind of you—I’m sure.” And then the Eternal Feminine came out with a sob. “You horrid man! You perfectly horrid man! You’re just——”
She flounced out of the room.