There were certainly plenty of grapes, and, with a snowy white cloth and the flowers which were intermingled with the fruit, and strewn all over it, the table looked very well for a bachelor abode. My father made a dignified but courteous host, and several times I found myself admiring his easy, natural manners, whilst Lady Olive, opposite to him, looked charming and bright, and kept us all talking and amused. After lunch was over my father and Mr. Leigh again became absorbed in a tête-à-tête, and, as Lord Parkhurst showed decided symptoms of indulging in a siesta, Lady Olive and I, with her brother Frank and the younger sister following, strolled down the steps into the neglected and luxuriantly overgrown but picturesque old garden. I am afraid we talked a good many soft nothings that afternoon, Lady Olive and I, my share in which I have often bitterly repented. But then, how many excuses there were! Lady Olive had openly professed herself to be a flirt, and as such I always regarded her, light-hearted, gay, and with winning manners, but a thorough-paced coquette. Her tender looks, and the soft light which so often shone in her dark eyes, had never been dangerous to me, for I had never believed in their sincerity. They had been very pleasant to respond to, and the occasional pressure of her small white fingers had been pleasant enough to feel. But I had always responded to these with a half-laughing acquiescence, feeling that I was playing my part in a game dangerous to neither of us. Experience has taught me that danger is an element never absent from such mocking interchanges of assumed affection, and that flirting, even in the most innocent manner, and even with one who calls herself a flirt, is better left alone.
CHAPTER XXXVI
MR. BURTON LEIGH
Soon after four o'clock Lord Parkhurst suddenly woke up, and remembered that the convent of San Martino was still unvisited. We were recalled from the garden, and after a hasty afternoon tea—à l'Anglaise—the mules were brought round, and we prepared to make a start. At the last moment Mr. Leigh, whose conversation with my father had never flagged, begged to be left behind and called for on our return, a proposition to which Lord Parkhurst at once good-humouredly assented.
"I'm sure we have to thank you heartily for your hospitality, Mr. Arbuthnot," his lordship remarked, as he bade my father farewell. "We came to call on you for a few minutes, and have quartered ourselves upon you for the day. I do hope you'll return our visit. I've taken the Palazzo Pericilo, in Palermo, for a month. Your son'll soon be able to show you where it is, I hope," he added, turning to me.
My father made some courteous but indefinite reply as he walked down the hall with his departing guests. To have looked at the two men, any one would certainly have supposed the positions reversed, and that my father had been the distinguished diplomatist and peer, whose visit was an honour, and Lord Parkhurst the man without a name.
"Your father is a veritable grand seigneur," Lady Olive said to me as we stood at the gate prepared to start. "I never saw a more distinguished-looking man." And, though I only laughed at her, I was pleased.
The ride to San Martino was a delightful one. We entered at once, after leaving the villa, into a narrow, rugged glen, which led us higher and higher, until at last Palermo, with its marvellously beautiful plain, and the blue water of the Mediterranean sweeping into its bay, lay stretched out behind us like a beautiful panorama. Though we were high up in the mountains, we were still surrounded by the most luxuriant vegetation, and a sudden turn in the road showed us, thousands of feet below, a beautifully-cultivated valley, in the bed of which were dense groves of orange-trees, while its sides were laid out as vineyards and wheatfields. But perhaps the most beautiful sight of all was the huge façade of the convent of San Martino, which we came upon unexpectedly, and which seemed to be heaved out of the earth by some caprice of nature.
More than an hour we spent wandering about its vast open corridors and magnificent staircases, and, melancholy and silent though it was, its grandeur and solemnity, and, above all, the silence which reigned throughout the enormous building, made a strong impression upon us. Even Lady Olive forbore to chatter, and we none of us felt inclined to speak above a whisper. For my part I was not sorry when our tour of inspection was over, for the place seemed to me depressing in its vast emptiness, and I think the others were of the same opinion, for we all gave a simultaneous gesture of relief when we stood again in the open air.
"We'll go back now, I think," said Lord Parkhurst, yawning. "What do you say, Olive? Had enough sight-seeing?"