Miss Cartwright was at home alone, she had not been well enough to go to church, and a hot, nervous flush was on her cheeks when she arose to receive three strangers. But Bice’s face, its beauty, its happiness, won her heart at once. Jack, who, in spite of his condemnation, had been greatly touched by the pathetic little story, had asked her to be kind to the girl, and though this radiant beauty was different from her expectations, it was charming in itself. When Jack came in, after taking the others to the hotel, he found them on the best of terms. Even Miss Preston thawed at intervals, especially when Mrs Masters showed a docile inclination to adopt her favourite prescription for a chill. Cartouche welcomed them with patronising dignity. There was a striped awning running out from the window, and under this they sat and chatted. It seemed to Bice like a little haven of rest and kindness, for, perhaps unfortunately, Ibbetson took, particular care that she should be looked after and amused. Presently they went for luncheon into the cool little dining-room. Miss Cartwright asked her nephew a question in a low voice, and Bice heard him say that they were all coming by-and-by. Who were they, she wondered; little knowing, poor child, what the knowledge would cost her. Then there were other questions. Miss Cartwright was interested about the old villa and their solitary life; Miss Preston was alarming Mrs Masters by searching demands for statistics of the farm expenses, of the vintage.
“Beatrice is my manager,” said her mother apologetically. “I was never a woman of business, or able to understand accounts. Fortunately she has taken to that sort of thing from the time she was a child. But we shall soon be going to Rome, for we have let the villa for a few months, and shall spend that time with a relation of the Capponis.”
“You are going to Rome?” said Ibbetson to Bice, with interest. “Then we shall meet, for I too am to be there this winter.” He hesitated whether he would or would not say “after my marriage,” but he did not add the words, and the girl looked up brightly.
“Oh, I am glad!” she said in a shy, quick voice.
How swiftly the moments flew! Every now and then a thought of Oliver and of Clive forced its way up into her mind, but she crushed it down again before it had time to shape itself—for this one half-day she would be free, she would be happy. Kitty, who had seen her the night before, looked with wonder at her smiles.
They were in the garden again when four more people arrived—Captain Leyton, his wife, Phillis Grey, and Mr Trent. When Bice saw Oliver, a sudden sickness seemed to overpower her, but she was still bent upon defying fate; and when he made his way to her side as if to claim her, she turned away with something more like a movement of dislike than she had ever yet shown to him. That he saw it was evident, for he drew back at once, but it was with a smile on his lips which a close observer might have called triumphant.
“The world is so small,” some one was proclaiming. “Who would have supposed that Mr Trent, whom we met at Bologna, and who lunched with us to-day, would have been coming to this very house on quite another account? It is almost provoking, I think, the way everybody knows everybody. One can never make discoveries on one’s own account.”
Mrs Leyton, who said this, was a fair, bright-faced woman, with a wish to be pathetic and a face which belied the attempt. She was a very popular person, for she had the power of adapting herself readily to those in whose society she happened to find herself, and was never unwilling to do a little kindness.
“I can’t quite agree with you, Mrs Leyton,” said Trent, in his deliberate voice. “It seems to me just the means by which one can make discoveries.”
“What does the fellow mean?” said Jack to himself. “He looks as hard at me as if he had raked out an escaped convict. Why did Phillis not tell me they had met him?”