“Dear Churchill,” it ran, “the marriage takes place to-morrow morning. Come, without fail, to the Villa Vittoria here, at four o’clock to-morrow afternoon.—P. L.”
Mr. Spenser Churchill’s face grew radiant.
“I knew he’d do it! I knew it! What an eye for character I have! I should have made a good general! I know how to pick my men. I was confident Percy would do what I wanted! To-morrow! Oh, yes, I’ll be there. Spenser, my dear friend, you have won the trick; you have——” He stopped, and a shade crossed his benevolent face. “I wish I’d made it twenty thousand, instead of ten,” he muttered, wistfully; “I might just as well have done so—he would not have said anything, and she wouldn’t have missed it. Why, her mother’s portion, of settlement money, will bring her five-and-twenty thousand a year, and that will which the marquis is not capable of altering makes her the mistress of all his money. Yes, I might just as well have had twenty! However”—and the smile beamed out again—“dear Percy shall make it up to me. He wouldn’t like his wife to know of our little contract, I should think, and I might feel it my duty to tell her, unless—unless he made it worth my while to hold my tongue. Yes, Churchill, my dear friend, you have warmed your nest pretty well; and now”—filling his glass—“now for the enjoyment. No more of these beastly charitable societies; no longer any need for playing the saint. Let me see—I’ll live in Paris, I think, most of my time. A man can enjoy himself in Paris without a parcel of fools interfering or holding him up to censure! In Paris or—yes, Constantinople. That’s not bad! Oh, what a time I will have! And Cecil, dear Cecil, who used to sneer at me and treat me as if I were an impostor; I think, yes, I think, dear Cecil, I shall have the laugh on you this time, you and your beautiful bride! For I’m afraid I shall feel it my duty to tell you how completely you have been fooled. Yes, I think I must do that, really! To-morrow! To-morrow the new life begins. Hem! well, the old one hasn’t been so bad! The charitable business has paid, it certainly has paid; but no more of it; I’m sick of it and the whole cant of it. I’ll enjoy myself in a proper fashion, enjoy myself in my honestly earned wealth. Let me see! Ten thousand pounds, with what I have—ahem!—saved, together with say a thousand or two a year out of dear Percy—how grateful he will be, of course—will make a nice little income. Spenser, my dear boy, you are a genius, and you ought to have been a general. Here’s your health and your future happiness!” and, with a chuckle, he filled his glass till it ran over, and drained it at a draught.
The Italians are not fond of high houses, and the Villa Vittoria, like most of its fellows in Pescia, covered a long space of ground, its rooms being arranged on two stories, with very few stairs and fewer corridors.
The apartments which the marquis occupied for his own personal use consisted of a sitting-room, and a dressing-room and bedroom adjoining, the latter divided from the sitting-room by heavy curtains. On the other side of the center room was a small anteroom which the marquis had not used; it was intended as a reception-room for tradespeople or persons who paid visits of business.
Percy Levant on the occasion of his interview with the marquis had noticed—very few things escaped his quick eyes—the arrangement of the rooms, and at half-past three on the afternoon of the sixteenth, the valet, who had received his instructions from Percy, ushered that gentleman, Lady Despard and Doris—who were closely veiled—into the anteroom, and softly closed the door.
Lady Despard raised her veil and shrugged her shoulders deprecatingly.
“Well, here we are, my dear Percy,” she said, in a low voice; “but I don’t think any one else in this world but you would have induced me to have come; and do you mean to say that you still decline to give us any explanation of these extraordinary proceedings?”
He shook his head as he drew Doris to a chair, into which she sank with a weary but resigned gesture.
“And you think that you are treating us properly by all this mystery; and on the dear child’s wedding day; for I suppose you two mean to be married this evening? Or is this but a preliminary to the breaking-off of the match; for, of course, I can see something is the matter between you two?” and she dropped into the chair with a movement of impatience.