XXXVII
The pains in his back and legs persisted all that night, and in the morning he confessed to Sophy that he thought he'd "caught a damned cold somehow," that his legs felt like a pair of red-hot compasses, and could she suggest a remedy? Sophy brought him ten grains of phenacetine from her little travelling medicine-chest, and in an hour he was much relieved. These pains were all the more annoying, as he had heard lately of the yearly boat-races on Lago Maggiore, and was keen on having Amaldi enter The Wind-Flower for these races.
"And if I get shelved with an attack of sciatica, there's the end of it!" he growled. "It nipped me once before, in Canada, so I know the strength of its cursed fangs."
Amaldi, finding that he would have to endure more than a good deal of Chesney's company, unless he devised some mitigation, had introduced him to several friends of his—keen yachtsmen, members of the R. V. Y. C. (Royal Verbano Yacht Club), an offshoot of the R. I. Y. C. This club has no seat, and its funds are devoted to prizes. It meets at Stresa, in a room, always gratuitously provided by the Hotel des Isles Barromées. There Amaldi took Chesney. The latter was much pleased with these Italian devotees of le sport, though he was also vastly tickled by some things about them. For instance, he could not get over the fact that, while they were one and all very well dressed in London clothes, three at least of them wore evening pumps with their yachting flannels, and one kept gloves on all the time, and even shook hands in them. That they spoke such excellent English struck him as astonishing. He had thought Amaldi an exception.
So Chesney was invited to sail also in other yachts, and Amaldi was relieved from such incessant contact with him. However, he found it impossible, with civility, to decline all his invitations to lunch and dine at Villa Bianca. In this way he saw even more of Sophy than he had hitherto done. But seeing her in this way was more painful to him than not seeing her at all. He longed for the time to come when they would leave Lago Maggiore. And Sophy talked very little when the two men were present.
"I thought you liked Amaldi?" Chesney said one day, looking at her rather keenly.
"I do," said Sophy. "Very much," she added, feeling that the coldness of her tone might seem singular.
"Well, upon my soul, no one would guess it," he retorted, rather crossly. Those pains were beginning to irritate him again. "Sometimes I wonder that he comes here at all—you're so confoundedly glacial and snubby in your manner to him."
"I?... 'Snubby' to Marchese Amaldi?" asked Sophy, really surprised.
"Yes, by Gad! Just that," said Chesney. "You never open your lips to him if you can help it. You sail out of the room for the least excuse—and stay out. The other night, at dinner, he asked you a question and you didn't even answer him."