Well, if we don't meet somewhere else, I will go there to see you, that much I promise. Then, almost awkwardly, he added, I want you to have my ring. He drew off the amethyst intaglio of Leda and the Swan and handed it to me.
We dressed in silence. The motor stood waiting in the road beside the decrepit farmhouse, noble even in its decay. Peter asked the chauffeur to drive him to the station, before he should take me back to the Villa Allegra, and at the station we parted.
Dinner that night seemed tasteless. Edith was furious; I have seldom seen her so angry. It was exactly what she would have done herself, had she been so inclined, but she was not at all pleased to have Peter usurp her privileges. She hardly waited for the salad, leaving me to munch my cheese and drink my coffee alone. Following dinner, I sat, a solitary figure on the loggia, smoking a cigarette and sipping my Strega. Giuseppe, the boy who brought it to me, seemed as dispirited as the rest of us. After trying in vain to interest myself in half a dozen books, I went to bed and rolled about restlessly during the long hot night. I was up very early and went to the garden as usual, but now lonely and miserable, to have my breakfast. The butler, more cynical than ever, brought the tray. A gardenia and a note were added touches. They were Edith's farewells. She had departed for a motor trip through the Abruzzi. She might return in three weeks. I was welcome to stay at the villa and wait or.... And so that summer ended.
A month later, Edith was back in New York and again I saw a good deal of her. She asked for news of Peter but I had none to give her. Other friends of mine who had heard about him from Edith, expressed a desire to meet him but, so far as I was concerned, I did not even know whether or not he was alive. In December, however, passing through Stuyvesant Square with its gaunt bare trees, the old red-brick Quaker school-houses, and the stately but ugly Saint George's, on my way to Second Avenue, where I intended to visit a shop where Hungarian music might be procured, I found him, sitting alone on a bench.
I am too happy to see you again, he greeted me, but only you. Edith must not be told that I am in New York, for at last I am working and I can afford no interruptions. Edith has a way of breaking up the rhythm of one's life and my life is very rhythmic just now. Do you remember, one night at the villa, there was some conversation about formulæ and black magic?
You mean the contessa....
She was speaking figuratively, perhaps, but I have taken her literally. He paused for a moment; then he continued, It is possible that you will also remember my telling you in Florence that I believed Donatello's David to be the most beautiful work of art in the world.
I remember; I still think you were right.
I haven't altered my opinion. It is the most beautiful statue I have ever seen, just as Debussy's l'Après-midi d'un Faune is the most beautiful music I have ever heard, just as The Hill of Dreams is—have you read it?
At that time, I had not, and I admitted it. I was even ignorant of the name of the author.