She turned.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, with a bow and a smile to the lady in the carriage, “I am afraid I must go.” He looked blankly into her eyes as she hesitated a moment. “It was a nice day! It was so long since I had seen anybody. And the cloister—that was nice. I shall always think of you there. It would have been so different if we had not been ready! Good-bye, Achille.”
The footman held open the emblazoned door.
“Good-bye—Elisabeth!” said Martin, too dazed to think or utter more.
The door clicked, the footman leaped to his box, the coachman flicked the horses. Beside the black parasol a white one went up, hiding the figure behind it. Martin’s first impulse was to follow, to see where the carriage went. He began to walk hastily in the direction it had taken, watching the two parasols. Then he stopped and turned resolutely away. “Lequel Achille voûlut faire le voyage d’Italie,” he said to himself. “Priez pour le salut de son âme.”
Wondering miserably what he should do with himself, Martin cast an indifferent glance at the building in front of him. It was one of the high dark-browed Tuscan palazzi, broad-eaved and strong-barred like the great houses of Florence. The entrance was closed. Above the massive archway was a device that attracted the young man’s attention. A fragment of chain hung there, from a bolt projecting above the keystone; and between the chain and a high stone escutcheon ran the legend, in letters of tarnished brass let into the weathered marble:
ALLA GIORNATA
MRS. DERWALL AND THE HIGHER LIFE
I
“Mrs. Hopp, ma’am,” announced the maid from the door.