The praise was unexpected, coming after the scene with Jacobelli and Mrs. Nevins. Griffeth felt almost a boyish gratitude surge through him warmly, and he thanked D’Istria with a break in his voice.
“The score is in Casanova’s hands now,” he told him, while Ward’s gray eyes never left his face. “I had hoped he might be here to-night.”
“He could not. To-night he gives a large reception himself after the concert at the Ritz. It will give me great pleasure to draw his attention to the score when I see him, if you will permit.”
With the ambassador’s hand-clasp toning his new outlook on life and opportunity, Ames passed the long half-circle of waiting cars in the courtyard, and made for the station on foot. Dmitri had been right in his estimate of patronage. In the reaction he longed for a quiet talk and smoke with him beside the copper brazier.
As Carlota came into the glow of the porte-cochère’s spreading light, Jacobelli took her handbag from her.
“Mr. Ward is kind enough to take you to your home,” he said authoritatively. “He will be here presently.”
He set her two suitcases in beside her, but she neither answered him nor even met his glance. Sinking back in the corner of the heavily cushioned car, she closed her eyes, feigning utter weariness. It was Griffeth’s last look that haunted her thoughts. Would the girl Assunta give him her note. She knew that she had done wrong professionally, that she had been guilty of almost an unpardonable error, yet it was not of Ward she thought, nor of Casanova and the chance that she might lose the financier’s patronage. The tender irresistible harmonies of “Cerca d’Amore” filled her brain. She could barely resist humming them, and smiling defiantly at the two moody faces after Ward joined them, and the car turned towards the city. Ward smoked small black cigars until the interior of the car was hazy with smoke and the maestro coughed irritably, but the other man paid no attention to him, merely watched Carlota. Jacobelli rambled on during the trip, but always striking the same motif.
“This to me, to Jacobelli! My greatest pupil jeopardizes her whole career by appearing prematurely at a charity fête for an unknown composer.”
“I did it for love of Italy,” Carlota told him with sudden passion. “If you were truly a patriot, you would be glad.”
“Love of Italy!” Jacobelli groaned at her stroke of diplomacy. “Bah! Love, yes, but not for Italy. You are infatuated with this nobody, this lapper from the saucer of cream people like Mrs. Nevins sets for patronage. This is not the professional strain in you of the Paoli. This is the Peppino Trelango strain. He delighted in the silken cushion, the easy path of the rich patron. You are an ingrate!”