“You are not responsible. You are unreasonable and reckless, and I shall lock you in your room. The Marchese and Jacobelli will be here later, and then you will tell them the truth about last night.”
“I will tell them nothing.” Carlota held her breath, listening to the turn of the lock in the door, and shrugged her shoulders as she laid her face on the red roses. It would not do to break her heart in solitude, not when she knew he was thinking of her and trying to reach her. Dmitri would surely find him and tell him all that had occurred the previous night. He would clear him of any charge Ward might lodge against him. What charge could they bring, save that he had befriended the boy Steccho and had loved her? Ingrate, they called her. The word puzzled her. She found her little red morocco dictionary in her desk drawer and looked it up in deepest interest. The definition was brief and to the point:
“Ingrate: One who is ungrateful.”
Sitting up in bed, girl fashion, she leaned her elbows on her knees, and thought seriously. The melody of “Cerca d’Amore” ran through her mind, the quest of love, and all her being seemed to become, in some mystical sense, a chalice to hold this divine essence of love that had glorified her life. Impulsively she turned the pages to the word “love.” The definition was vague and unsatisfactory.
“Love: to have affection.”
She pursed her lips, and gravely sought another route to knowledge.
“Husband: a man who marries a woman.”
This was utterly absurd to a seeker after life’s greatest, sweetest mystery. She hurried to “wife,” and found merely an echo.
“Wife: a woman who marries a man.”
Last of all, she found “marriage.” It was positively trite.