Maria retired to the kitchenette to prepare fresh tea, and Carlota lighted the candles on the low table by the fire.
“You are happy, yes?” the Marchese asked, regarding her with the pride he took no pains to conceal. “Jacobelli tells me it may only be for one year more, and then, behold! I live for that first night of triumph.”
Carlota sighed impatiently. It was as though the sight of the jewels and story of La Paoli’s life had wakened in her youth’s urge for adventure. She looked up at the fine old face wistfully.
“I am lonely. Tanta keeps me as secluded as if I were in a convent. Surely I am old enough to go out somewhere. Now that summer is over, it seems as if I could not stand another winter. Aren’t they bleak here? Every day when we walk in the Park, I want to turn and run from it all, the stripped trees and caged animals, and Maria and Jacobelli, and everything!” Her finger-tips stretched widely. “I am homesick.”
“No, you are just ennuied, that is all,” said the Marchese soothingly. He pursed his lips until his silver-gray imperial and pointed mustache took on the semblance of a crescent and scimitar. Yet his eyes twinkled down at her understandingly. “Sunday evening I go, as is my custom, to the home of my friend Carrollton Phelps. Many, many interesting people drop in there at that time. It would be a beginning for you, but, mind, I will not have you known for what you are. Not a whisper.”
“Are they all”—Carlota checked herself; not for worlds would she have wounded the debonnair old courtier by even suggesting that he was past the meridian of life—“famous?”
“No, no, no. They are all aspirants,” he corrected. “One must show some signs of having the germ, at least, of genius before the door opens widely, but you will find many who are young like yourself, many. I, myself, will prepare Maria.”
But when the evening came the signora was indisposed, and insisted on Carlota’s remaining with her. The Marchese waved her objections aside tenderly.
“It is most informal and Mrs. Phelps is charming. Here in America, Maria, we adjust the barriers of etiquette to the whim of the moment. I will guard her from anything dangerous, you may be sure.”
They had taken a hansom down the avenue, instead of a taxi. It was the Marchese’s choice.