As the taxi turned into Park Avenue, she leaned forward and drew the curtain hastily. Standing on the corner, with his back to the street, was Steccho talking to Dmitri. Neither had seen her, but she left the curtains down all the long, lonely way out to Strathmore, on the north shore of Long Island. Already the rubies had laid their crimson fear on her imagination, and she dreaded she knew not what from the two silent figures that lingered near her home. Was Dmitri, too, one to be shunned and doubted? Why did they seek her? She wished with all her heart that she had taken the Marchese into her confidence.
CHAPTER XIII
It was after nine when the taxi wheeled around the crescent drive at Belvoir. Carlota leaned forward, her sense of beauty thrilled at the effect of the place in the full moonlight. It was modeled exactly, as Mrs. Nevins loved to explain, after Diane de Poitiers’s love cote in France, Chenonceaux.
The fête was in full swing. She did not see Ames anywhere, but told one of the footmen who approached her that she was a singer on the programme. He led the way back of the gay crowd in the flower-festooned corridors to an inner court that had been transformed into an Italian village en fête.
Standing at the head of a wide, curving staircase was Mrs. Nevins, garbed as Vittoria Colonna, the noble lady who was Michelangelo’s inspiration. Nathalie stood near, a silk domino only half concealing her chic peasant dress. At sight of her Carlota caught her breath involuntarily. Even as a child she had always loved the fêtes at the Villa Tittani, and the distinguished guests who had flocked there around the grand old Contessa. Here she was merely an unknown singer, passing unnoticed through a throng of strangers. The whimsicality of it touched her sense of humor and amused her. She was indeed Fiametta, moving unknown among the villagers.
Jacobelli stood chatting with Count D’Istria, the ambassador. They were almost within arm’s length of Carlota as she passed by them, unseen and unseeing, her eyes seeking only for Ames.
“You are not overfond, then, of these society theatricals?” asked the Count. “It is for an excellent object, the milk fund for Italy.”
Jacobelli lifted bored, deprecating eyebrows.
“It is torture to me, but what would you? The lady has a daughter with a voice, and she will have none but Jacobelli’s opinion of its quality. Therefore I come to-night to oblige. But, ah, Count, if you could but hear my genius, my star of evening who will shortly, before another season, burst into full splendor. You recall La Paoli?”
D’Istria nodded interestedly.